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AS COLONEL OF THE ROUGH RIDERS 

Colonel Roosevelt in camp with his regimenl, the First Volunteer Cavalry, 
at Tampa, Florida, previous to embarkation for Cuba 



statesman lebition 



THE ROUGH RIDERS 



BY 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 




PUBLISHED WITH THE PERMISSION OF THE 
PRESIDENT THROUGH SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT 
WITH THE CENTURY CO., MESSRS. CHARLES 
SCRIBNKR'3 SONS, AND G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 



NEW YORK 

tHE REVIEW OF REVIEWS COMPANV 

MCM IV 
tl 






^L 



'" -(. 



Copyright 1899 
Bv CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



This edition is published under arrangement with 
Charles Scribner's Sons, of New York 

Editor 



w, 



ON BEHALF OF THE ROUGH RIDERS 

1 DEDICATE THIS BOOK 

TO THE OFFICERS AND MEN OF THE 

FIVE REGULAR REGIMENTS 

WHICH TOGETHER WITH MINE MADE UP THE 

CAVALRY DIVISION AT SANTIAGO 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 



Executive Mansion 

Albany, N. Y., 

May /, i8gq 



Hark! I hear the tramp of thousands, 

And of armed men the hum; 
Lo! a nation's hosts have gathered 
Round the quick-alarming drum — 
Saying, "Come, 
Freemen, come! 
Ere your heritage be wasted," said the quick-alarming drum. 

"Let me of my heart take counsel; 
War is not of Life the sum; 
Who shall stay and reap the harvest 
When the autumn days shall come?" 
But the drum 
Echoed, "Come! 
Death shall reap the braver harvest," said the solemn-sound° 
ing drum. 

"But when won the coming battle. 
What of profit springs therefrom? 
What if conquest, subjugation, 
Even greater ills become?" 
But the drum 
Answered, Come! 
You must do the sum to prove it," said the Yankee-answer- 
ing drum. 

— Bret Harte 



Vol. XI.— a 



CONTENTS 



I. Raising the Regiment 5 

II. To Cuba 41 

III. General Young's Fight at Las Guasimas . . 73 

IV. The Cavalry at Santiago 112 

V. In the Trenches i57 

VI. The Return Home 194 

Appendices : 

A. Muster-Out Roll 233 

B. Colonel Roosevelt's Report to the Secretary of 

War of September loth 282 

C. The "Round Robin" Letter 295 

D. Corrections 301 



THE ROUGH RIDERS 



RAISING THE REGIMENT 

DURING the year preceding the outbreak of the 
Spanish War I was Assistant Secretary of 
the Navy. While my party was in opposition, I 
had preached, with all the fervor and zeal I pos- 
sessed, our duty to intervene in Cuba, and to take 
this opportunity of driving the Spaniard from the 
Western World. Now that my party had come to 
povv^er, I felt it incumbent on me, by word and deed, 
to do all I could to secure the carrying out of the 
policy in which I so heartily believed ; and from the 
beginning I had determined that, if a war came, 
somehow or other, I was going to the front. 

Meanwhile, there was any amount of work at 
hand in getting ready the navy, and to this I de- 
voted myself. 

Naturally, when one is intensely interested in a 
certain cause, the tendency is to associate particu- 
larly with those who take the same view. A large 
number of my friends felt very differently from the 
way I felt, and looked upon the possibility of war 

(5) 



6 The Rough Riders 

with sincere horror. But I found plenty of sym- 
pathizers, especially in the navy, the army, and the 
Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs. Commo- 
dore Dewey, Captain Evans, Captain Brownson, 
Captain Davis — with these and the various other 
naval officers on duty at Washington I used to 
hold long consultations, during which we went over 
and over, not only every question of naval admin- 
istration, but specifically everything necessary to do 
in order to put the navy in trim to strike quick and 
hard if, as we believed would be the case, we went 
to war with Spain. Sending an ample quantity of 
ammunition to the Asiatic squadron and providing 
it with coal ; getting the battleships and the armored 
cruisers on the Atlantic into one squadron, both to 
train them in manoeuvring together, and to have 
them ready to sail against either the Cuban or the 
Spanish coasts; gathering the torpedo-boats into a 
flotilla for practice ; securing ample target exercise, 
so conducted as to raise the standard of our marks- 
manship; gathering in the small ships from Euro- 
pean and South American waters; settling on the 
number and kind of craft needed as auxiliary cruis- 
ers — every one of these points was threshed over in 
conversations with officers who were present in 
Washington, or in correspondence with officers who, 
like Captain Mahan, were absent. 

As for the Senators, of course Senator Lodge 



Raising the Regiment 7 

and I felt precisely alike ; for to fight in such a cause 
and with such an enemy was merely to carry out 
the doctrines we had both of us preached for many 
years. Senator Davis, Senator Proctor, Senator 
Foraker, Senator Chandler, Senator Morgan, Sena- 
tor Frye, and a number of others also took just the 
right ground ; and I saw a great deal of them, as 
well as of many members of the House, particularly 
those from the West, where the feeling for war was 
strongest. 

Naval officers came and went, and Senators were 
only in the city while the Senate was in session ; but 
there was one friend who was steadily in Washing- 
ton. This was an army surgeon, Dr. Leonard 
Wood. I only met him after I entered the navy 
department, but we soon found that we had kindred 
tastes and kindred principles. He had served in 
General Miles's inconceivably harassing campaigns 
against the Apaches, where he had displayed such 
courage that he won that most coveted of distinc- 
tions — the Medal of Honor ; such extraordinary 
physical strength and endurance that he grew to be 
recognized as one of the two or three white men 
who could stand fatigue and hardship as well as an 
Apache; and such judgment that toward the close 
of the campaigns he was given, though a surgeon, 
the actual command of more than one expedition 
against the bands of renegade Indians. Like so 



8 The Rough Riders 

many of the gallant fighters with whom it was later 
my good fortune to serve, he combined, in a very 
high degree, the qualities of entire manliness with 
entire uprightness and cleanliness of character. It 
was a pleasure to deal with a man of high ideals, 
who scorned everything mean and base, and who 
also possessed those robust and hardy qualities of 
body and mind, for the lack of which no merely neg- 
ative virtue can ever atone. He was by nature a 
soldier of the highest type, and, like most natural 
soldiers, he was, of course, born with a keen long- 
ing for adventure; and, though an excellent doctor, 
what he really desired was the chance to lead men 
in some kind of hazard. To every possibility of 
such adventure he paid quick attention. For in- 
stance, he had a great desire to get me to go with 
him on an expedition into the Klondike in mid-win- 
ter, at the time when it was thought that a relief 
party would have to be sent there to help the starv- 
ing miners. 

In the summer he and I took long walks together 
through the beautiful broken country surrounding 
Washington. In winter we sometimes varied these 
walks by kicking a football in an empty lot, or, on 
the rare occasions when there was enough snow, 
by trying a couple of sets of skis or snow-skates, 
which had been sent me from Canada. 

But always on our way out to and back from these 



Raising the Regiment 9 

walks and sport, there was one topic to which, in 
our talking, we returned, and that was the possible 
war with Spain. We both felt very strongly that 
such a war would be as righteous as it would be 
advantageous to the honor and the interests of the 
nation ; and after the blowing up of the Maine, we 
felt that it was inevitable. We then at once began 
to try to see that we had our share in it. The 
President and my own chief, Secretary Long, were 
very firm against my going, but they said that if I 
was bent upon going they would help me. Wood 
was the medical adviser of both the President and 
the Secretary of War, and could count upon their 
friendship. So we started with the odds in our 
favor. 

At first we had great difficulty in knowing exactly 
what to try for. We could go on the staff of any 
one of several Generals, but we much preferred to 
go in the line. Wood hoped he might get a com- 
mission in his native State of Massachusetts ; but in 
Massachusetts, as in every other State, it proved 
there were ten men who wanted to go to the war for 
every chance to go. Then we thought we might 
get positions as field-officers under an old friend of 
mine. Colonel — now General — Francis V. Greene, 
of New York, the Colonel of the Seventy-first ; but 
again there were no vacancies. 

Our doubts were resolved when Congress author- 



lo The Rough Riders 

ized the raising of three cavalry regiments from 
among the wild riders and riflemen of the Rockies 
and the Great Plains. During Wood's service in 
the Southwest he had commanded not only regulars 
and Indian scouts, but also white frontiersmen. In 
the Northwest I had spent much of my time, for 
many years, either on my ranch or in long hunting 
trips, and had lived and worked for months together 
with the cowboy and the mountain hunter, faring in 
every way precisely as they did. 

Secretary Alger offered me the command of one 
of these regiments. If I had taken it, being en- 
tirely inexperienced in military work, I should not 
have known how to get it equipped most rapidly, 
for I should have spent valuable weeks in learning 
its needs, with the result that I should have missed 
the Santiago campaign, and might not even have 
had the consolation prize of going to Porto Rico. 
Fortunately, I was wise enough to tell the Secretary 
that while I believed I could learn to command the 
regiment in a month, yet that it was just this very 
month which I could not afford to spare, and that 
therefore I would be quite content to go as Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel, if he would make Wood Colonel. 

This was entirely satisfactory to both the Presi- 
dent and Secretary, and, accordingly, Wood and 
I were speedily commissioned as Colonel and Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel of the First United States Volunteer 



Raising the Regiment ii 

Cavalry. This was the official title of the regiment, 
but for some reason or other the public promptly 
christened us the "Rough Riders." At first we 
fought against the use of the term, but to no pur- 
pose ; and when finally the Generals of Division and 
Brigade began to write in formal communications 
about our regiment as the "Rough Riders," we 
adopted the term ourselves. 

The mustering-places for the regiment were ap- 
pointed in New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma, and 
Indian Territory. The difficulty in organizing was 
not in selecting, but in rejecting men. Within a 
day or two after it was announced that we were to 
raise the regiment, we were literally deluged with 
applications from every quarter of the Union. 
Without the slightest trouble, so far as men went, 
we could have raised a brigade or even a division. 
The difficulty lay in arming, equipping, mounting, 
and disciplining the men we selected. Hundreds of 
regiments were being called into existence by the 
National Government, and each regiment was sure 
to have innumerable wants to be satisfied. To a 
man who knew the ground as Wood did, and who 
was entirely aware of our national unpreparedness, 
it was evident that the ordnance and quartermas- 
ter's bureaus could not meet, for some time to come, 
one-tenth of the demands that would be made upon 
them; and it was all-important to get in first with 



12 The Rough Riders 

our demands. Thanks to his knowledge of the sit- 
uation and promptness, we immediately put in our 
requisitions for the articles indispensable for the 
equipment of the regiment; and then, by ceaseless 
worrying of excellent bureaucrats, who had no idea 
how to do things quickly or how to meet an emer- 
gency, we succeeded in getting our rifles, cartridges, 
revolvers, clothing, shelter-tents, and horse gear just 
in time to enable us to go on the Santiago expedi- 
tion. Some of the State troops, who were already 
organized as National Guards, were, of course, 
ready, after a fashion, when the war broke out ; but 
no other regiment which had our work to do was 
able to do it in anything like as quick time, and 
therefore no other volunteer regiment saw anything 
like the fighting which we did. 

Wood thoroughly realized what the Ordnance 
Department failed to realize, namely, the inestima- 
ble advantage of smokeless powder; and, moreover, 
he was bent upon our having the weapons of the 
regulars, for this meant that we would be brigaded 
with them, and it was evident that they would do 
the bulk of the fighting if the war were short. Ac- 
cordingly, by acting with the utmost vigor and 
promptness, he succeeded in getting our regiment 
armed with the Krag-Jorgensen carbine used by 
the regular cavalry. 

It was impossible to take any of the numerous 



Raising the Regiment 13 

companies which were proffered to us from the 
various States. The only organized bodies we were 
at hberty to accept were those from the four Terri- 
tories. But owing to the fact that the number of 
men orginally allotted to us, 780, was speedily raised 
to 1,000, we were given a chance to accept quite a 
number of eager volunteers who did not come from 
the Territories, but who possessed precisely the 
same temper that distinguished our Southwestern 
recruits, and whose presence materially benefited 
the regiment. 

We drew recruits from Harv^ard, Yale, Prince- 
ton, and many another college; from clubs like the 
Somerset, of Boston, and Knickerbocker, of New 
York; and from among the men who belonged 
neither to club nor to college, but in whose veins the 
blood stirred with the same impulse which once sent 
the Vikings over sea. Four of the policemen who 
had served under me, while I was President of the 
New York Police Board, insisted on coming — two 
of them to die, the other two to return unhurt after 
honorable and dangerous service. It seemed to me 
that almost every friend I had in every State had 
some one acquaintance who was bound to go with 
the Rough Riders, and for whom I had to make a 
place. Thomas Nelson Page, General Fitzhugh Lee, 
Congressman Odell of New York, Senator Morgan ; 
for each of these, and for many others, I eventually 



14 The Rough Riders 

consented to accept some one or two recruits, of 
course only after a most rigid examination into their 
physical capacity, and after they had shown that 
they knew how to ride and shoot. I may add that 
in no case was I disappointed in the men thus taken. 
Harvard being my own college, I had such a 
swarm of applicants from it that I could not take 
one in ten. What particularly pleased me, not only 
in the Harvard but the Yale and Princeton men, and, 
indeed, in these recruits from the older States gen- 
erally, was that they did not ask for commissions. 
With hardly an exception they entered upon their 
duties as troopers in the spirit which they held to the 
end, merely endeavoring to show that no work could 
be too hard, too disagreeable, "or too dangerous for 
them to perform, and neither asking nor receiving 
any reward in the way of promotion or considera- 
tion. The Harvard contingent was practically 
raised by Guy Murchie, of Maine. He saw all the 
fighting and did his duty with the utmost gallantry, 
and then left the service as he had entered it, a 
trooper, entirely satisfied to have done his duty — 
and no man did it better. So it was with Dudley 
Dean, perhaps the best quarterback who ever played 
on a Harvard Eleven; and so with Bob Wrenn, a 
quarterback whose feats rivalled those of Dean's, 
and who, in addition, was the champion tennis player 
of America, and had, on two different years, saved 



Raising the Regiment 15 

this championship from going to an EngHshman. 
So it was with Yale men Hke Waller, the high 
jumper, and Garrison and Girard; and with Prince- 
ton men like Devereux and Channing, the football 
players; with Larned, the tennis player; with Craig 
Wads worth, the steeple-chase rider; with Joe Stev- 
ens, the crack polo player ; with Hamilton Fish, the 
ex-captain of the Columbia crew, and with scores of 
others whose names are quite as worthy of mention 
as any of those I have given. Indeed, they all sought 
entry into the ranks of the Rough Riders as eagerly 
as if it meant something widely different from hard 
work, rough fare, and the possibility of death; and 
the reason why they turned out to be such good sol- 
diers lay largely in the fact that they were men who 
had thoroughly counted the cost before entering, 
and who went into the regiment because they be- 
lieved that this offered their best chance for seeing 
hard and dangerous service. Mason Mitchell, of 
New York, who had been a chief of scouts in the 
Riel Rebellion, traveled all the way to San Antonio 
to enlist; and others came there from distances as 
great. 

Some of them made appeals to me which I could 
not possibly resist. Woodbury Kane had been a 
close friend of mine at Harvard. During the eigh- 
teen years that had passed since my graduation I 
had seen very little of him, though, being always 



i6 The Rough Riders 

interested in sport, I occasionally met him on the 
hunting field, had seen him on the deck of the De- 
fender when she vanquished the Valkyrie, and knew 
the part he had played on the Navajoe, when, in her 
most important race, that otherwise unlucky yacht 
vanquished her opponent, the Prince of Wales's 
Britannia. When the war was on, Kane felt it his 
duty to fight for his country. He did not seek any 
position of distinction. All he desired was the chance 
to do whatever work he was put to do well, and to 
get to the front ; and he enlisted as a trooper. When 
I went down to the camp at San Antonio he was on 
kitchen duty, and was cooking and washing dishes 
for one of the New Mexican troops; and he was 
doing it so well that I had no further doubt as to 
how he would get on. 

My friend of many hunts and ranch partner, Rob- 
ert Munro Ferguson, of Scotland, who had been on 
Lord Aberdeen's staff as a Lieutenant but a year be- 
fore, likewise could not keep out of the regiment. 
He, too, appealed to me in terms which I could not 
withstand, and came in like Kane to do his full duty 
as a trooper, and like Kane to win his commission 
by the way he thus did his duty. 

I felt many qualms at first in allowing men of 
this stamp to come in, for I could not be certain that 
they had counted the cost, and was afraid they would 
find it very hard to serve — not for a few days, but 



Raising the Regiment 17 

for months — in the ranks, while I, their former inti- 
mate associate, was a field-officer; but they insisted 
that they knew their minds, and the events showed 
that they did. We enlisted about fifty of them from 
Virginia, Maryland, and the Northeastern States, 
at Washington. Before allowing them to be sworn 
in, I gathered them together and explained that if 
they went in they must be prepared not merely to 
fight, but to perform the weary, monotonous labor 
incident to the ordinary routine of a soldier's life; 
that they must be ready to face fever exactly as they 
were to face bullets; that they were to obey un- 
questioningly, and to do their duty as readily if 
called upon to garrison a fort as if sent to the front. 
I warned them that work that was merely irksome 
and disagreeable must be faced as readily as work 
that was dangerous, and that no complaint of any 
kind must be made ; and I told them that they were 
entirely at liberty not to go, but that after they had 
once signed there could then be no backing out. 

Not a man of them backed out ; not one of them 
failed to do his whole duty. 

These men formed but a small fraction of the 
whole. They went down to San Antonio, where 
the regiment was to gather and where Wood pre- 
ceded me, while I spent a week in Washington hur- 
rjnng up the different bureaus and telegraphing my 
various railroad friends, so as to ensure our getting 



1 8 The Rough Riders 

the carbines, saddles, and uniforms that we needed 
from the various armories and storehouses. Then 
I went down to San Antonio myself, where I found 
the men from New Mexico, Arizona, and Oklahoma 
already gathered, while those from Indian Territory 
came in soon after my arrival. 

These were the men who made up the bulk of the 
regiment, and gave it its peculiar character. They 
came from the Four Territories which yet remained 
within the boundaries of the United States ; that is, 
from the lands that have been most recently won 
over to white civilization, and in which the condi- 
tions of life are nearest those that obtained on the 
frontier when there still was a frontier. They were 
a splendid set of men, these Southwesterners — tall 
and sinewy, with resolute, weather-beaten faces, and 
eyes that looked a man straight in the face without 
flinching. They included in their ranks men of 
every occupation ; but the three types were those of 
the cowboy, the hunter, and the mining prospector 
— the man who wandered hither and thither, killing 
game for a living, and spending his life in the quest 
for metal wealth. 

In all the world there could be no better material 
for soldiers than that afforded by these grim hunters of 
the mountains, these wild rough riders of the plains. 
They were accustomed to handling wild and savage 
horses ; they were accustomed to following the chase 



Raising the Regiment 19 

with the rifle, both for sport and as a means of Hve- 
h"hood. Varied though their occupations had been, 
almost all had, at one time or another, herded cattle 
and hunted big game. They were hardened to life 
in the open, and to shifting for themselves under 
adverse circumstances. They were used, for all 
their lawless freedom, to the rough discipline of the 
round-up and the mining company. Some of them 
came from the small frontier towns ; but most were 
from the wilderness, having left their lonely hunt- 
ers' cabins and shifting cow-camps to seek new and 
more stirring adventures beyond the sea. 

They had their natural leaders — the men who had 
shown they could master other men, and could more 
than hold their own in the eager driving life of the 
new settlements. 

The Captains and Lieutenants were sometimes 
men who had campaigned in the regular army 
against Apache, Ute, and Cheyenne, and who, on 
completing their term of service, had shown their 
energy by settling in the new communities and 
growing up to be men of mark. In other cases they 
were sheriffs, marshals, deputy-sheriffs, and deputy- 
marshals — men who had fought Indians, and still 
more often had waged relentless war upon the bands 
of white desperadoes. There was Bucky O'Neill, 
of Arizona, Captain of Troop A, the Mayor of Pres- 
cott, a famous sheriff throughout the West for his 



20 The Rough Riders 

feats of victorious warfare against the Apache, no 
less than against the white road-agents and man- 
killers. His father had fought in Meagher's Brig- 
ade in the Civil War; and he was himself a born 
soldier, a born leader of men. He was a wild, reck- 
less fellow, soft spoken, and of dauntless courage 
and boundless ambition; he was stanchly loyal to 
his friends, and cared for his men in every way. 
There was Captain Llewellen, of New Mexico, a 
good citizen, a political leader, and one of the most 
noted peace-officers of the country ; he had been shot 
four times in pitched fights with red marauders and 
white outlaws. There was Lieutenant Ballard, who 
had broken up the Black Jack gang of ill-omened 
notoriety, and his Captain, Curry, another New Mex- 
ican sheriff of fame. The officers from the Indian 
Territory had almost all served as marshals and 
deputy-marshals; and in the Indian Territory, ser- 
vice as a deputy-marshal meant capacity to fight 
stand-up battles with the gangs of outlaws. 

Three of our higher officers had been in the regu- 
lar army. One was Major Alexander Brodie, from 
Arizona, afterward Lieutenant-Colonel, who had 
lived for twenty years in the Territory, and had be- 
come a thorough Westerner without sinking the 
West Pointer — a soldier by taste as well as training, 
whose men worshiped him and would follow him 
anywhere, as they would Bucky O^Neill or any 



Raising the Regiment 21 

other of their favorites. Brodie was running a big 
mining business ; but when the Maine was blown up, 
he abandoned everything and telegraphed right and 
left to bid his friends get ready for the fight he saw 
impending. 

Then there was Micah Jenkins, the Captain of 
Troop K, a gentle and courteous South Carolinian, 
on whom danger acted like wine. In action he was 
a perfect gamecock, and he won his majority for 
gallantry in battle. 

Finally, there was Allyn Capron, who was, on the 
whole, the best soldier in the regiment. In fact, I 
think he was the ideal of what an American regular 
army officer should be. He was the fifth in descent 
from father to son who had served in the army of 
the United States, and in body and mind alike he 
was fitted to play his part to perfection. Tall and 
lithe, a remarkable boxer and walker, a first-class 
rider and shot, with yellow hair and piercing blue 
eyes, he looked what he was, the archetype of the 
fighting man. He had under him one of the two 
companies from the Indian Territory ; and he so soon 
impressed himself upon the wild spirit of his follow- 
ers, that he got them ahead in discipline faster than 
any other troop in the regiment, while at the same 
time taking care of their bodily wants. His cease- 
less effort was so to train them, care for them, and 
inspire them as to bring their fighting efficiency to 



22 The Rough Riders 

the highest possible pitch. He required instant obe- 
dience, and tolerated not the slightest evasion of 
duty ; but his mastery of his art was so thorough and 
his performance of his own duty so rigid that he 
won at once not merely their admiration, but that 
soldierly affection so readily given by the man in the 
ranks to the superior who cares for his men and 
leads them fearlessly in battle. 

All — Easterners and Westerners, Northerners 
and Southerners, officers and men, cowboys and col- 
lege graduates, wherever they came from, and what- 
ever their social position — possessed in common the 
traits of hardihood and a thirst for adventure. They 
were to a man born adventurers, in the old sense of 
the word. 

The men in the ranks were mostly young; yet 
some were past their first youth. These had taken 
part in the killing of the great buffalo herds, and 
had fought Indians when the tribes were still on 
the warpath. The younger ones, too, had led rough 
lives; and the lines in their faces told of many a 
hardship endured, and many a danger silently faced 
with grim, unconscious philosophy. Some were 
originally from the East, and had seen strange ad- 
ventures in different kinds of life, from sailing round 
the Horn to mining in Alaska. Others had been 
born and bred in the West, and had never seen a 
larger town than Santa Fe or a bigger body of 



Raising the Regiment 23 

water than the Pecos in flood. Some of them went 
by their own name ; some had changed their names ; 
and yet others possessed but half a name, colored by 
some adjective, like Cherokee Bill, Happy Jack of 
Arizona, Smoky Moore, the bronco-buster, so named 
because cowboys often call vicious horses *'smoky" 
horses, and Rattlesnake Pete, who had lived among 
the Moquis and taken part in the snake-dances. 
Some were professional gamblers, and, on the other 
hand, no less than four were or had been Baptist or 
Methodist clergymen — and proved first-class fight- 
ers, too, by the way. Some were men whose lives 
in the past had not been free from the taint of those 
fierce kinds of crime into which the lawless spirits 
who dwell on the borderland between civilization and 
savagery so readily drift. A far larger number 
had served at different times in those bodies of 
armed men with which the growing civilization of 
the border finally puts down its savagery. 

There was one characteristic and distinctive con- 
tingent which could have appeared only in such a 
regiment as ours. From the Indian Territory there 
came a number of Indians — Cherokees, Chickasaws, 
Choctaws, and Creeks. Only a few were of pure 
blood. The others shaded off until they were ab- 
solutely indistinguishable from their white com- 
rades; with whom, it may be mentioned, they all 
lived on terms of complete equality. 



24 The Rough Riders 

Not all of the Indians were from the Indian Ter- 
ritory. One of the gamest fighters and best soldiers 
in the regiment was Pollock, a full-blooded Pawnee. 
He had been educated, like most of the other In- 
dians, at one of those admirable Indian schools 
which have added so much to the total of the small 
credit account with which the White race balances 
the very unpleasant debit account of its dealings 
with the Red. Pollock was a silent, solitary fellow 
— an excellent penman, much given to drawing pic- 
tures. When we got down to Santiago he devel- 
oped into the regimental clerk. I never suspected 
him of having a sense of humor until one day, at 
the end of our stay in Cuba, as he was sitting in the 
Adjutant's tent working over the returns, there 
turned up a trooper of the First who had been act- 
ing as barber. Eying him with immovable face, 
Pollock asked, in a guttural voice, "Do you cut 
hair?" The man answered, "Yes"; and Pollock 
continued, "Then you'd better cut mine," muttering, 
in an explanatory soliloquy, "Don't want to wear 
my hair long like a wild Indian when I'm in civilized 
warfare." 

Another Indian came from Texas. He was a 
brakeman on the Southern Pacific, and wrote tell- 
ing me he was an American Indian, and that he 
wanted to enlist. His name was Colbert, which at 
once attracted my attention ; for I was familiar with 



Raising the Regiment 25 

the history of the Cherokees and Chickasaws during 
the eighteenth century, when they Hved east of the 
Mississippi. Early in that century various traders, 
chiefly Scotchmen, settled among them, and the half- 
breed descendants of one named Colbert became the 
most noted chiefs of the Chickasaws. I summoned 
the applicant before me, and found that he was an 
excellent man, and, as I had supposed, a descendant 
of the old Chickasaw chiefs. 

He brought into the regiment, by the way, his 
"partner," a white man. The two had been insep- 
arable companions for some years, and continued so 
in the regiment. Every man who has lived in the 
West knows that, vindictive though the hatred be- 
tween the white man and the Indian is when they 
stand against one another in what may be called 
their tribal relations, yet that men of Indian blood, 
when adopted into white communities, are usually 
treated precisely like any one else. 

Colbert was not the only Indian whose name I 
recognized. There was a Cherokee named Adair, 
who, upon inquiry, I found to be descended from 
the man who, a century and a half ago, wrote a 
ponderous folio, to this day of great interest, about 
the Cherokees, with whom he had spent the best 
years of his life as a trader and agent. 

I don't know that I ever came across a man with 
a really sweeter nature than another Cherokee 
Vol. XI.— B 



26 The Rough Riders 

named Holderman. He was an excellent soldier, 
and for a long time acted as cook for the head- 
quarters mess. He was a half-breed, and came of 
a soldier stock on both sides and through both races. 
He explained to me once why he had come to the 
war; that it was because his people always had 
fought when there was a war, and he could not 
feel happy to stay at home when the flag was going 
into battle. 

Two of the young Cherokee recruits came to me 
with a most kindly letter from one of the ladies who 
had been teaching in the academy from which they 
were about to graduate. She and I had known one 
another in connection with Governmental and phil- 
anthropic work on the reservations, and she wrote 
to commend the two boys to my attention. One 
was on the Academy football team and the other in 
the glee-club. Both were fine young fellows. The 
football player now lies buried with the other dead 
who fell in the fight at San Juan. The singer was 
brought to death's door by fever, but recovered and 
came back to his home. 

There were other Indians of much wilder type, 
but their wildness was precisely like that of the cow- 
boys with whom they were associated. One or two 
of them needed rough discipline; and they got it, 
too. Like the rest of the regiment, they were splen- 
did riders. I remember one man, whose character 



Raising the Regiment 27 

left much to be desired in some respects, but 
whose horsemanship was unexceptionable. He was 
mounted on an exceedingly bad bronco, which would 
bolt out of the ranks at drill. He broke it of this 
habit by the simple expedient of giving it two tre- 
mendous twists, first to one side and then to the 
other, as it bolted, with the result that, invariably, 
at the second bound its legs crossed and over it went 
with a smash, the rider taking the somersault with 
unmoved equanimity. 

The life histories of some of the men who joined 
our regiment would make many volumes of thrilling 
adventure. 

We drew a great many recruits from Texas ; and 
from nowhere did we get a higher average, for 
many of them had served in that famous body of 
frontier fighters, the Texas Rangers. Of course, 
these rangers needed no teaching. They were al- 
ready trained to obey and to take responsibility. 
They were splendid shots, horsemen, and trailers. 
They were accustomed to living in the open, to en- 
during great fatigue and hardship, and to encoun- 
tering all kinds of danger. 

Many of the Arizona and New Mexico men had 
taken part in warfare with the Apaches, those ter- 
rible Indians of the waterless Southwestern moun- 
tains — the most bloodthirsty and the wildest of all 
the red men of America, and the most formidable 



28 The Rough Riders 

in their own dreadful style of warfare. Of course, 
a man who had kept his nerve and held his own, 
year after year, while living where each day and 
night contained the threat of hidden death from a 
foe whose goings and comings were unseen, was 
not apt to lose courage when confronted with any 
other enemy. An experience in following in the 
trail of an enemy who might flee at one stretch 
through fifty miles of death-like desert was a 
good school out of which to come with profound 
indifference for the ordinary hardships of cam- 
paigning. 

As a rule, the men were more apt, however, to 
have had experience in warring against white des- 
peradoes and law-breakers than against Indians. 
Some of our best recruits came from Colorado. 
One, a very large, hawk-eyed man, Benjamin Frank- 
lin Daniels, had been Marshal of Dodge City when 
that pleasing town was probably the toughest abode 
of civilized man to be found anywhere on the con- 
tinent. In the course of the exercise of his rather 
lurid functions as peace-officer he had lost half 
of one ear — "bitten off," it was explained to me. 
Naturally, he viewed the dangers of battle with 
philosophic calm. Such a man was, in reality, a 
veteran even in his first fight, and was a tower of 
strength to the recruits in his part of the line. With 
him there came into the regiment a deputy-marshal 



Raising the Regiment 29 

from Cripple Creek named Sherman Bell. Bell 
had a hernia^ but he was so excellent a man that we 
decided to take him. I do not think I ever saw 
greater resolution than Bell displayed throughout 
the campaign. In Cuba the great exertions which 
he was forced to make again and again opened the 
hernia, and the surgeons insisted that he must re- 
turn to the United States; but he simply would not 
go. 

Then there was little McGinty, the bronco-bus- 
ter from Oklahoma, who never had walked a hun- 
dred yards if by any possibility he could ride. When 
McGinty was reproved for his absolute inability to 
keep step on the drill-ground, he responded that he 
was pretty sure he could keep step on horseback. 
McGinty's short legs caused him much trouble on 
the marches, but we had no braver or better man in 
the fights. 

One old friend of mine had come from far north- 
ern Idaho to join the regiment at San Antonio-. 
He was a hunter, named Fred Herrig, an Alsatian 
by birth. A dozen years before he and I had hunted 
mountain-sheep and deer when laying in the winter 
stock of meat for my ranch on the Little Missouri, 
sometimes in the bright fall weather, sometimes in 
the Arctic bitterness of the early Northern winter. 
He was the most loyal and simple-hearted of men, 
and he had come to join his old "boss" and comrade 



30 The Rough Riders 

in the bigger hunting which we were to carry on 
through the tropic mid-summer. 

The temptation is great to go on enumerating 
man after man who stood pre-eminent, whether as 
a killer of game, a tamer of horses, or a queller of 
disorder among his people, or who, mayhap, stood 
out with a more evil prominence as himself a dan- 
gerous man — one given to the taking of life on 
small provocation, or one who was ready to earn his 
living outside the law if the occasion demanded it. 
There was tall Proffit, the sharpshooter, from North 
Carolina — sinewy, saturnine, fearless; Smith, the 
bear-hunter from Wyoming, and McCann, the Ari- 
zona bookkeeper, who had begun life as a buffalo- 
hunter. There was Crockett, the Georgian, who had 
been an Internal Revenue officer,^nd had waged 
perilous war on the rifle-bearing "moonshiners." 
There were Darnell and Wood of New Mexico, who 
could literally ride any horses alive. There were 
Goodwin, and Buck Taylor, and Armstrong the 
ranger, crack shots with rifle or revolver. There 
was many a skilled packer who had led and guarded 
his trains of laden mules through the Indian-haunted 
country surrounding some outpost of civilization. 
There were men who had won fame as Rocky Moun- 
tain stage-drivers, or who had spent endless days 
in guiding the slow wagon-trains across the grassy 
plains. There were miners who knew every camp 



Raising the Regiment 31 

from the Yukon to Leadville, and cow-punchers in 
whose memories were stored the brands carried by 
the herds from Chihuahua to Assiniboia. There 
were men who had roped wild steers in the mes- 
quite brush of the Nueces, and who, year in and 
year out, had driven the trail herds northward over 
desolate wastes and across the fords of shrunken 
rivers to the fattening grounds of the Powder and 
the Yellowstone. They were hardened to the scorch- 
ing heat and bitter cold of the dry plains and pine- 
clad mountains. They were accustomed to sleep in 
the open, while the picketed horses grazed beside 
them near some shallow, reedy pool. They had 
wandered hither and thither across the vast deso- 
lation of the wilderness, alone or with comrades. 
They had cowered in the shelter of cut banks from 
the icy blasts of the norther, and far out on the mid- 
summer prairies they had known the luxury of lying 
in the shade of the wagon during the noonday rest. 
They had lived in brush lean-tos for weeks at a time, 
or with only the wagon-sheet as an occasional house. 
They had fared hard when exploring the unknown ; 
they had fared well on the round-up; and they had 
known the plenty of the log ranch-houses, where the 
tables were spread with smoked venison and calf- 
ribs and milk and bread, and vegetables from the 
garden-patch. 

Such were the men we had as recruits: soldiers 



32 The Rough Riders 

ready made, as far as concerned their capacity as in- 
dividual fighters. What was necessary was to teach 
them to act together, and to obey orders. Our 
special task was to make them ready for action in 
the shortest possible time. We were bound to see 
fighting, and therefore to be with the first expedi- 
tion that left the United States; for we could not 
tell how long the war would last. 

I had been quite prepared for trouble when it 
came to enforcing discipline, but I was agreeably 
disappointed. There were plenty of hard characters 
who might by themselves have given trouble, and 
with one or two of whom we did have to take rough 
measures; but the bulk of the men thoroughly un- 
derstood that without discipline they would be mere- 
ly a valueless mob, and they set themselves hard at 
work to learn the new duties. Of course, such a 
regiment, in spite of, or indeed I might almost say 
because of, the characteristics which made the in- 
dividual men so exceptionally formidable as soldiers, 
could very readily have been spoiled. Any weak- 
ness in the commander would have ruined it. On 
the other hand, to treat it from the standpoint of the 
martinet and military pedant would have been al- 
most equally fatal. From the beginning we started 
out to secure the essentials of discipline, while lay- 
ing just as little stress as possible on the non-essen- 
tials. The men were singularly quick to respond 



Raising the Regiment 33 

to any appeal to their intelligence and patriotism. 
The faults they committed were those of ignorance 
merely. When Holderman, in announcing dinner 
to the Colonel and the three Majors, genially re- 
marked, "If you fellars don't come soon, everything 
'11 get cold," he had no thought of other than a 
kindly and respectful regard for their welfare, and 
was glad to modify his form of address on being 
told that it was not what could be described as con- 
ventionally military. When one of our sentinels, 
who had with much labor learned the manual of 
arms, saluted with great pride as I passed, and 
added, with a friendly nod, "Good-evening, Colo- 
nel," this variation in the accepted formula on such 
occasions was meant, and was accepted, as mere 
friendly interest. In both cases the needed instruc- 
tion was given and received in the same kindly 
spirit. 

One of the new Indian Territory recruits, after 
twenty-four hours' stay in camp, during which he 
had held himself distinctly aloof from the general 
interests, called on the Colonel in his tent, and re- 
marked, "Well, Colonel, I want to shake hands 
and say we're with you. We didn't know how we 
would like you fellars at first ; but you're all right, 
and you know your business, and you mean busi- 
ness, and you can count on us every time!" 

That same night, which was hot, mosquitoes were 



34 The Rough Riders 

very annoying; and shortly after midnight both the 
Colonel and I came to the doors of our respective 
tents, which adjoined one another. The sentinel 
in front was also fighting mosquitoes. As we came 
out we saw him pitch his gun about ten feet off, and 
sit down to attack some of the pests that had 
swarmed up his trousers' legs. Happening to glance 
in our direction, he nodded pleasantly and, with un- 
abashed and friendly feeling, remarked, "Ain't they 
bad?" 

It was astonishing how soon the men got over 
these little peculiarities. They speedily grew to rec- 
ognize the fact that the observance of certain forms 
was essential to the maintenance of proper disci- 
pline. They became scrupulously careful in touch- 
ing their hats, and always came to attention when 
spoken to. They saw that we did not insist upon 
the observance of these forms to humiliate them; 
that we were as anxious to learn our own duties as 
we were to have them learn theirs, and as scrupu- 
lous in paying respect to our superiors as we were 
in exacting the acknowledgment due our rank from 
those below us ; moreover, what was very important, 
they saw that we were careful to look after their 
interests in every way, and were doing all that was 
possible to hurry up the equipment and drill of the 
regiment, so as to get into the war. 

Rigid guard duty was estabhshed at once, and 



Raising the Regiment 35 

every one was impressed with the necessity for vig- 
ilance and watchfulness. The policing of the camp 
was likewise attended to with the utmost rigor. As 
always with new troops, they were at first indiffer- 
ent to the necessity for cleanliness in camp arrange- 
ments; but on this point Colonel Wood brooked no 
laxity, and in a very little while the hygienic condi- 
tions of the camp were as good as those of any regu- 
lar regiment. Meanwhile the men were being 
drilled, on foot at first, with the utmost assiduity. 
Every night we had officers' school, the non-com- 
missioned officers of each troop being given similar 
schooHng by the Captain or one of the Lieutenants 
of the troop; and every day we practiced hard, by 
squad, by troop, by squadron, and battalion. The 
earnestness and intelligence with which the men 
went to work rendered the task of instruction much 
less difficult than would be supposed. It soon grew 
easy to handle the regiment in all the simpler forms 
of close and open order. When they had grown so 
that they could be handled with ease in marching, 
and in the ordinary manoeuvres of the drill-ground, 
we began to train them in open-order work, skir- 
mishing and firing. Here their woodcraft and 
plainscraft, their knowledge of the rifle, helped us 
very much. Skirmishing they took to naturally, 
which was fortunate, as practically all our fighting 
was done in open order. 



36 The Rough Riders 

Meanwhile we were purchasing horses. Judg- 
ing from what I saw I do not think that we got 
heavy enough animals, and of those purchased cer- 
tainly a half were nearly unbroken. It was no easy 
matter to handle them on the picket-lines, and to 
provide for feeding and watering; and the efforts 
to shoe and ride them were at first productive of 
much vigorous excitement. Of course, those that 
were wild from the range had to be thrown and tied 
down before they could be shod. Half the horses 
of the regiment bucked, or possessed some other of 
the amiable weaknesses incident to horse life on the 
great ranches; but we had abundance of men who 
were utterly unmoved by any antic a horse might 
commit. Every animal was speedily mastered, 
though a large number remained to the end mounts 
upon which an ordinary rider would have felt very 
uncomfortable. 

My own horses were purchased for me by a Texas 
friend, John Moore, with whom I had once hunted 
peccaries on the Nueces. I only paid fifty dollars 
apiece, and the animals were not showy; but they 
were tough and hardy, and answered my purpose 
well. 

Mounted drill with such horses and men bade 
fair to offer opportunities for excitement; yet it 
usually went off smoothly enough. Before drilling 
the men on horseback they had all been drilled on 



Raising the Regiment 37 

foot, and having gone at their work with hearty 
zest, they knew well the simple movements to form 
any kind of line or column. Wood was busy from 
morning till night in hurrying the final details of 
the equipment, and he turned the drill of the men 
over to me. To drill perfectly needs long practice, 
but to drill roughly is a thing very easy to learn in- 
deed. We were not always right about our inter- 
vals, our lines were somewhat irregular, and our 
more difficult movements were executed at times in 
rather a haphazard way; but the essential com- 
mands and the essential movements we learned with- 
out any difficulty, and the men performed them with 
great dash. When we put them on horseback, there 
was, of course, trouble with the horses; but the 
horsemanship of the riders was consummate. In 
fact, the men were immensely interested in making 
their horses perform each evolution with the utmost 
speed and accuracy, and in forcing each unquiet, 
vicious brute to get into line and stay in line, 
whether he would or not. The guidon-bearers held 
their plunging steeds true to the line, no matter 
what they tried to do ; and each wild rider brought 
his wild horse into his proper place with a dash and 
ease which showed the natural cavalryman. 

In short, from the very beginning the horseback 
drills were good fun, and every one enjoyed them. 
We marched out through the adjoining country to 



38 The Rough Riders 

drill wherever we found open ground, practicing all 
the different column formations as we went. On 
the open ground we threw out the line to one side 
or the other, and in one position and the other, some- 
times at the trot, sometimes at the gallop. As the 
men grew accustomed to the simple evolutions, we 
tried them more and more in skirmish drills, prac- 
ticing them so that they might get accustomed to 
advance in open order and to skirmish in any coun- 
try, while the horses were held in the rear. 

Our arms were the regular cavalry carbine, the 
"Krag," a splendid weapon, and the revolver. A 
few carried their favorite Winchesters, using, of 
course, the new model, which took the Government 
cartridge. We felt very strongly that it would be 
worse than a waste of time to try to train our men 
to use the sabre — a weapon utterly alien to them; 
but with the rifle and revolver they were already 
familiar. Many of my cavalry friends in the past 
had insisted to me that the revolver was a better 
weapon than the sword — among them Basil Duke, 
the noted Confederate cavalry leader, and Captain 
Frank Edwards, whom I had met when elk-hunting 
on the headwaters of the Yellowstone and the 
Snake. Personally, I knew too little to decide as 
to the comparative merits of the two arms; but I 
did know that it was a great deal better to use the 
arm with which our men were already proficient. 



Raising the Regiment 39 

They were therefore armed with what might be 
called their natural weapon, the revolver. 

As it turned out, we were not used mounted at 
all, so that our preparations on this point came to 
nothing. In a way, I have always regretted this. 
We thought we should at least be employed as cav- 
alry in the great campaign against Havana in the 
fall; and from the beginning I began to train my 
men in shock tactics for use against hostile cavalry. 
My belief was that the horse was really the weapon 
with which to strike the first blow. I felt that if 
my men could be trained to hit their adversaries 
with their horses, it was a matter of small amount 
whether, at the moment when the onset occurred, 
sabres, lances, or revolvers were used; while in the 
subsequent melee I believed the revolver would out- 
class cold steel as a weapon. But this is all guess- 
work, for we never had occasion to try the experi- 
ment. 

It was astonishing what a difference was made 
by two or three weeks' training. The mere thor- 
ough performance of guard and police duties helped 
the men very rapidly to become soldiers. The offi- 
cers studied hard, and both officers and men worked 
hard in the drill-field. It was, of course, rough and 
ready drill; but it was very efficient, and it was 
suited to the men who made up the regiment. Their 
uniform also suited them. In their slouch hats, blue 



40 The Rough Riders 

flannel shirts, brown trousers, leggings, and boots, 
with handkerchiefs knotted loosely around their 
necks, they looked exactly as a body of cowboy cav- 
alry should look. The officers speedily grew to real- 
ize that they must not be over-familiar with their 
men, and yet that they must care for them in every 
way. The men, in return, began to acquire those 
habits of attention to soldierly detail which mean so 
much in making a regiment. Above all, every man 
felt, and had constantly instilled into him, a keen 
pride of the regiment, and a resolute purpose to do 
his whole duty uncomplainingly, and, above ali, 
to win glory by the way he handled himself in 
battle. 



II 

TO CUBA 

UP to the last moment we were spending every 
ounce of energy we had in getting the regiment 
into shape. Fortunately, there were a good many 
vacancies among the officers, as the original number 
of 780 men was increased to 1,000; so that two com- 
panies were organized entirely anew. This gave the 
chance to promote some first-rate men. 

One of the most useful members of the regiment 
was Dr. Robb Church, formerly a Princeton football 
player. He was appointed as Assistant Surgeon, 
but acted throughout almost all the Cuban cam- 
paign as the Regimental Surgeon. It was Dr. 
Church who first gave me an idea of Bucky O'Neill's 
versatility, for I happened to overhear them dis- 
cussing Aryan word-roots together, and then sliding 
off into a review of the novels of Balzac, and a dis- 
cussion as to how far Balzac could be said to be 
the founder of the modern realistic school of fiction. 
Church had led almost as varied a life as Bucky 
himself, his career including incidents as far apart 
as exploring and elk-hunting in the Olympic Moun- 

(41) 



42 The Rough Riders 

tains, cooking in a lumber-camp, and serving as doc- 
tor on an emigrant ship. 

Woodbury Kane was given a commission, and also 
Horace Devertax, of Princeton. Kane was older 
than the other college men who entered in the ranks ; 
and as he had the same good qualities to start with, 
this resulted in his ultimately becoming perhaps the 
most useful soldier in the regiment. He escaped 
wounds and serious sickness, and was able to serve 
through every day of the regiment's existence. 

Two of the men made Second Lieutenants by 
promotion from the ranks while in San /\ntonio 
were John Greenway, a noted Yale football player 
and catcher on her baseball nine, and David Good- 
rich, for two years captain of the Harvard crew. 
They were young men, Goodrich having only just 
graduated; while Greenway, whose father had 
served with honor in the Confederate Army, had 
been out of Yale three or four years. They were 
natural soldiers, and it would be wellnigh impossible 
to overestimate the amount of good they did the 
regiment. They were strapping fellows, entirely 
fearless, modest, and quiet. Their only thought was 
how to perfect themselves in their own duties, and 
how to take care of the men under them, so as to 
bring them to the highest point of soldierly per- 
fection. I grew steadily to rely upon them, as men 
who could be counted upon with absolute certainty, 



To Cuba 43 

not only in every emergency, but in all routine work. 
They were never so tired as not to respond with 
eagerness to the slightest suggestion of doing some- 
thing new, whether it was dangerous or merely 
difficult and laborious. They not merely did their 
duty, but were always on the watch to find out some 
new duty which they could construe to be theirs. 
Whether it was policing camp, or keeping guard, or 
preventing straggling on the march, or procuring 
food for the men, or seeing that they took care of 
themselves in camp, or performing some feat of un- 
usual hazard in the fight — no call was ever made 
upon them to which they did not respond with eager 
thankfulness for being given the chance to answer 
it. Later on I worked them as hard as I knew how, 
and the regiment will always be their debtor. 

Greenway was from Arkansas. We could have 
filled up the whole regiment many times over from 
the South Atlantic and Gulf States alone, but were 
only able to accept a very few applicants. One of 
them was John Mcllhenny, of Louisiana; a planter 
and manufacturer, a big-game hunter and book- 
lover, who could have had a commission in the 
Louisiana troops, but who preferred to go as a 
trooper in the Rough Riders because he believed we 
would surely see fighting. He could have com- 
manded any influence, social or political, he wished ; 
but he never asked a favor of any kind. He went 



44 The Rough Riders 

into one of the New Mexican troops, and by his 
high quaHties and zealous attention to duty speedily 
rose to a sergeancy, and finally won his lieutenancy 
for gallantry in action. 

The tone of the officers' mess was very high. 
Every one seemed to realize that he had undertaken 
most serious work. They all earnestly wished for a 
chance to distinguish themselves, and fully appre- 
ciated that they ran the risk not merely of death, 
but of what was infinitely worse — namely, failure 
at the crisis to perform duty well; and they strove 
earnestly so to train themselves, and the men under 
them, as to minimize the possibility of such disgrace. 
Every officer and every man was taught continu- 
ally to look forward to the day of battle eagerly, but 
with an entire sense of the drain that would then be 
made upon his endurance and resolution. They 
were also taught that, before the battle came, the 
rigorous performance of the countless irksome duties 
of the camp and the march was demanded from all 
alike, and that no excuse would be tolerated for fail- 
ure to perform duty. Very few of the men had gone 
into the regiment lightly, and the fact that they 
did their duty so well may be largely attributed to 
the seriousness with which these eager, adventurous 
young fellows approached their work. This seri- 
ousness, and a certain simple manliness which ac- 
companied it, had one very pleasant side. During 



To Cuba 45 

our entire time of service, I never heard in the offi- 
cers' mess a foul story or a foul word; and though 
there was occasional hard swearing in moments of 
emergency, yet even this was the exception. 

The regiment attracted adventurous spirits from 
everywhere. Our chief trumpeter was a native 
American, our second trumpeter was from the Medi- 
terranean — I think an Italian — who had been a sol- 
dier of fortune not only in Egypt, but in the French 
Army in Southern China. Two excellent men were 
Osborne, a tall Australian, who had been an officer 
in the New South Wales Mounted Rifles ; and Cook, 
an Englishman, who had served in South Africa. 
Both, when the regiment disbanded, were plaintive 
in expressing their fond regret that it could not be 
used against the Transvaal Boers! 

One of our best soldiers was a man whose real 
and assumed names I, for obvious reasons, conceal. 
He usually went by a nickname which I will call 
Tennessee. He was a tall, gaunt fellow, with a 
quiet and distinctly sinister eye, who did his duty 
excellently, especially when a fight was on, and 
who, being an expert gambler, always contrived 
to reap a rich harvest after pay-day. When the 
regiment was mustered out, he asked me to put a 
brief memorandum of his services on his discharge 
certificate, which I gladly did. He much appre- 
ciated this, and added, in explanation, "You see. 



46 The Rough Riders 

Colonel, my real name isn't Smith, it's Yancy. I 
had to change it, because three or four years ago I 
had a little trouble with a gentleman, and — er — 
well, in fact, I had to kill him ; and the District At- 
torney, he had it in for me, and so I just skipped the 
country; and now, if it ever should be brought up 
against me, I should like to show your certificate 
as to my character!" The course of frontier justice 
sometimes moves in unexpected zigzags; so I did 
not express the doubt I felt as to whether my cer- 
tificate that he had been a good soldier would help 
him much if he was tried for a murder committed 
three or four years previously. 

The men worked hard and faithfully. As a rule, 
in spite of the number of rough characters among 
them, they behaved very well. One night a few of 
them went on a spree, and proceeded "to paint San 
Antonio red." One was captured by the city au- 
thorities, and we had to leave him behind us in 
jail. The others we dealt with ourselves, in a way 
that prevented a repetition of the occurrence. 

The men speedily gave one another nicknames, 
largely conferred in a spirit of derision, their basis 
lying in contrast. A brave but fastidious member 
of a well-known Eastern club, who was serving in 
the ranks, was christened "Tough Ike" ; and his 
bunkie, the man who shared his shelter-tent, who 
was a decidedly rough cowpuncher, gradually ac- 



To Cuba 47 

quired the name of "The Dude." One unlucky and 
simple-minded cowpuncher, who had never been east 
of the great plains in his life, unwarily boasted that 
he had an aunt in New York, and ever afterward 
went by the name of "Metropolitan Bill." A huge 
red-headed Irishman was named "Sheeny Solo- 
mon." A young Jew who developed into one of the 
best fighters in the regiment accepted, with entire 
equanimity, the name of "Pork-chop." We had 
quite a number of professional gamblers, who, I am 
bound to say, usually made good soldiers. One, 
who was almost abnormally quiet and gentle, was 
called "Hell Roarer"; while another, who in point 
of language and deportment was his exact antithesis, 
was christened "Prayerful James." 

While the officers and men were learning their 
duties, and learning to know one another. Colonel 
Wood was straining every nerve to get our equip- 
ments — an effort which was complicated by the 
tendency of the Ordnance Bureau to send whatever 
we really needed by freight instead of express. 
Finally, just as the last rifles, revolvers, and saddles 
came, we were ordered by wire at once to proceed 
by train to Tampa. 

Instantly, all was joyful excitement. We had 
enjoyed San Antonio, and were glad that our regi- 
ment had been organized in the city where the 
Alamo commemorates the death fight of Crockett, 



48 The Rough Riders 

Bowie, and their famous band of frontier heroes. 
All of us had worked hard, so that we had had no 
time to be homesick or downcast ; but we were glad 
to leave the hot camp, where every day the strong 
wind sifted the dust through everything, and to 
start for the gathering-place of the army which was 
to invade Cuba. Our horses and men were getting 
into good shape. We were well enough equipped to 
warrant our starting on the campaign, and every 
man was filled with dread of being out of the fight- 
ing. We had a pack-train of 150 mules, so we had 
close on to 1,200 animals to carry. 

Of course, our train was split up into sections, 
seven, all told ; Colonel Wood commanding the first 
three, and I the last four. The journey by rail 
from San Antonio to Tampa took just four days, 
and I doubt if anybody who was on the trip will soon 
forget it. To occupy my few spare moments, I 
was reading M. Demolins's "Superiorite des Anglo- 
Saxons." M. Demolins, in giving the reasons why 
the English-speaking peoples are superior to those 
of Continental Europe, lays much stress upon the 
way in which "militarism" deadens the power of 
individual initiative, the soldier being trained to com- 
plete suppression of individual will, while his facul- 
ties become atrophied in consequence of his being 
merely a cog in a vast and perfectly ordered ma- 
chine. I can assure the excellent French publicist 



To Cuba 49 

that American "militarism," at least of the volun- 
teer sort, has points of difference from the militarism 
of Continental Europe. The battalion chief of a 
newly raised American regiment, when striving to 
get into a war which the American people have un- 
dertaken with buoyant and light-hearted indifference 
to detail, has positively unlimited opportunity for 
the display of "individual initiative," and is in no 
danger whatever either of suffering from unhealthy 
suppression of personal will, or of finding his facul- 
ties of self-help numbed by becoming a cog in a 
gigantic and smooth-running machine. If such a 
battalion chief wants to get anything or go any- 
where he must do it by exercising every pound of 
resource, inventiveness, and audacity he possesses. 
The help, advice, and superintendence he gets from 
outside will be of the most general, not to say super- 
ficial, character. If he is a cavalry officer, he has 
got to hurry and push the purchase of his horses, 
plunging into and out of the meshes of red-tape 
as best he can. He will have to fight for his rifles 
and his tents and his clothes. He will have to keep 
his men healthy largely by the light that nature has 
given him. When he wishes to embark his regi- 
ment, he will have to fight for his railway-cars ex- 
actly as he fights for his transport when it comes to 
going across the sea; and on his journey his men 
will or will not have food, and his horses will or will 

Vol. XL— C 



5© The Rough Riders 

not have water and hay, and the trains will or will 
not make connections, in exact correspondence to the 
energy and success of his own efforts to keep things 
moving straight. 

It was on Sunday, May 29th, that we marched 
out of our hot, windy, dusty camp to take the cars 
for Tampa. Colonel Wood went first, with the 
three sections under his special care. I followed 
with the other four. The railway had promised us 
a forty-eight hours' trip, but our experience in load- 
ing was enough to show that the promise would not 
be made good. There were no proper facilities for 
getting the horses on or off the cars, or for feeding 
or watering them; and there was endless confusion 
and delay among the railway officials. I marched 
my four sections over in the afternoon, the first three 
having taken the entire day to get off. We occupied 
the night. As far as the regiment itself was con- 
cerned, we worked an excellent system. Wood in- 
structing me exactly how to proceed so as to avoid 
confusion. Being a veteran campaigner, he had all 
along insisted that for such work as we had before 
us we must travel with the minimum possible lug- 
gage. The men had merely what they could carry 
on their o^vn backs, and the officers very little more. 
My own roll of clothes and bedding could be put 
on my spare horse. The mule-train was to be used 
simply for food, forage, and spare ammunition. As 



To Cuba 51 

it turned out, we were not allowed to take either it 
or the horses. 

It was dusk when I marched my long files of dusty- 
troopers into the station-yard. I then made all dis- 
mount, excepting the troop which I first intended to 
load. This was brought up to the first freight-car. 
Here every man unsaddled, and left his saddle, 
bridle, and all that he did not himself need in the car, 
each individual's property being corded together. 
A guard was left in the car, and the rest of the men 
took the naked horses into the pens to be fed and 
watered. The other troops were loaded in the same 
way in succession. With each section there were 
thus a couple of baggage-cars in which the horse- 
gear, the superfluous baggage, and the travel ra- 
tions were carried; and I also put aboard, not only 
at starting, but at every other opportunity, what 
oats and hay I could get, so as to provide against 
accidents for the horses. By the time the baggage^ 
cars were loaded the horses of the first section had 
eaten and drunk their fill, and we loaded them on 
cattle-cars. The officers of each troop saw to the 
loading, taking a dozen picked men to help them; 
for some of the wild creatures, half broken and fresh 
from the ranges, were with difficulty driven up the 
chutes. Meanwhile I superintended not merely my 
own men, but the railroad men ; and when the delays 
of the latter, and their inability to understand what 



5^ The Rough Riders 

was necessary, grew past bearing, I took charge of 
the trains myself, so as to ensure the horse-cars 
of each section being coupled with the baggage- 
cars of that section. 

We worked until long past midnight before we 
got the horses and baggage aboard, and then found 
that for some reason the passenger-cars were de- 
layed and would not be out for some hours. In the 
confusion and darkness men of the different troops 
had become scattered, and some had drifted off to 
the vile drinking-booths around the stockyards; so 
I sent details to search the latter, while the trumpe- 
ters blew the assembly until the First Sergeants 
could account for all the men. Then the troops 
were arranged in order, and the men of each lay 
down where they were, by the tracks and in the 
brush, to sleep until morning. 

At dawn the passenger-trains arrived. The senior 
Captain of each section saw to it that his own 
horses, troopers, and baggage were together; and 
one by one they started off, I taking the last in 
person. Captain Capron had at the very beginning 
shown himself to be simply invaluable, from his 
extraordinary energy, executive capacity, and mas- 
tery over men ; and I kept his section next mine, so 
that we generally came together at the different 
yards. 

The next four days were very hot and very dusty. 



To Cuba $^ 

I tried to arrange so the sections would be far 
enough apart to allow each ample time to unload, 
feed, water, and load the horses at any stopping- 
place before the next section could arrive. There 
was enough delay and failure to make connections 
on the part of the railroad people to keep me en- 
tirely busy, not to speak of seeing at the stopping- 
places that the inexperienced officers got enough hay 
for their horses, and that the water given to them 
was both ample in quantity and drinkable. It hap- 
pened that we usually made our longest stops at 
night, and this meant that we were up all night long. 

Two or three times a day I got the men buckets 
of hot coffee, and when we made a long enough stop 
they were allowed liberty under the supervision of 
the non-commissioned officers. Some of them 
abused the privilege, and started to get drunk. 
These were promptly handled with the necessary 
severity, in the interest of the others ; for it was 
only by putting an immediate check to every form 
of lawlessness or disobedience among the few men 
who were inclined to be bad that we were enabled 
to give full liberty to those who would not abuse it. 

Everywhere the people came out to greet us and 
cheer us. They brought us flowers ; they brought us 
watermelons and other fruits, and sometimes jugs 
and pails of milk — all of which we greatly appre- 
ciated. We were traveling through a region where 



54 The Rough Riders 

practically all the older men had served in the Con- 
federate Army, and where the younger men had all 
their lives long drunk in the endless tales told by 
their elders, at home, and at the cross-roads taverns, 
and in the court-house squares, about the cavalry 
of Forrest and Morgan and the infantry of Jackson 
and Hood. The blood of the old men stirred to the 
distant breath of battle; the blood of the young 
men leaped hot with eager desire to accompany us. 
The older women, who remembered the dreadful 
misery of war — the misery that presses its iron 
weight most heavily on the wives and the little ones 
— looked sadly at us ; but the young girls drove down 
in bevies, arrayed in their finery, to wave flags 
in farewell to the troopers and to beg cartridges and 
buttons as mementos. Everywhere we saw the Stars 
and Stripes, and everywhere we were told, half- 
laughing, by grizzled ex-Confederates that they had 
never dreamed in the bygone days of bitterness to 
greet the old flag as they now were greeting it, and 
to send their sons, as now they were sending them, 
to fight and die under it. 

It was four days later that we disembarked, in a 
perfect welter of confusion. Tampa lay in the pine- 
covered sand-flats at the end of a one-track railroad, 
and everything connected with both military and 
railroad matters was in an almost inextricable tangle. 
There was no one to meet us or to tell us where we 



To Cuba $$ 

were to camp, and no one to issue us food for the 
first twenty- four hours ; while the railroad people un- 
loaded us wherever they pleased, or rather wherever 
the jam of all kinds of trains rendered it possible. 
We had to buy the men food out of our own pockets, 
and to seize wagons in order to get our spare bag- 
gage taken to the camping ground which we at last 
found had been allotted to us. 

Once on the ground, we speedily got order out 
of confusion. Under Wood's eye the tents were 
put up in long streets, the picket-line of each troop 
stretching down its side of each street. The offi- 
cers' quarters were at the upper ends of the streets, 
the company kitchens and sinks at the opposite ends. 
The camp was strictly policed, and drill promptly be- 
gun. For thirty-six hours we let the horses rest, 
drilling on foot, and then began the mounted drill 
again. The regiments with which we were after- 
ward to serve were camped near us, and the sandy 
streets of the little town were thronged with soldiers, 
almost all of them regulars ; for there were but one 
or two volunteer organizations besides ourselves. 
The regulars wore the canonical dark blue of Uncle 
Sam. Our own men were clad in dusty brown 
blouses, trousers and leggings being of the same hue, 
while the broad-brimmed soft hat was of dark gray ; 
and very workmanlike they looked as, in column of 
fours, each troop trotted down its company street to 



5^ The Rough Riders 

form by squadron or battalion, the troopers sitting 
steadily in the saddles as they made their half-trained 
horses conform to the movement of the guidons. 

Over in Tampa town the huge winter hotel was 
gay with general officers and their staffs, with women 
in pretty dresses, with newspaper correspondents by 
the score, Math military attaches of foreign powers, 
and with onlookers of all sorts; but we spent very 
little time there. 

We worked with the .utmost industry, special at- 
tention being given by each troop-commander to 
skirmish-drill in the woods. Once or twice we had 
mounted drill of the regiment as a whole. The mili- 
tary attaches came out to look on — English, German, 
Russian, French, and Japanese. With the English- 
man, Captain Arthur Lee, a capital fellow, we soon 
struck up an especially close friendship ; and we saw 
much of him throughout the campaign. So we did 
of several of the newspaper correspondents — Rich- 
ard Harding Davis, John Fox, Jr., Caspar Whitney, 
and Frederic Remington. On Sunday Chaplain 
Brown, of Arizona, held service, as he did almost 
every Sunday during the campaign. 

There were but four or five days at Tampa, how- 
ever. We were notified that the expedition would 
start for destination unknown at once, and that we 
were to go with it ; but that our horses were to be 
left behind, and only eight troops of seventy men 



To Cuba 57 

each taken. Our sorrow at leaving the horses was 
entirely outweighed by our joy at going; but it was 
very hard indeed to select the four troops that were 
to stay, and the men who had to be left behind from 
each of the troops that went. Colonel Wood took 
Major Brodie and myself to command the two 
squadrons, being allowed only two squadron com- 
manders. The men who were left behind felt the 
most bitter heartburn. To the great bulk of them 
I think it will be a lifelong sorrow. I saw more than 
one, both among the officers and privates, burst into 
tears when he found he could not go. No outsider 
can appreciate the bitterness of the disappointment. 
Of course, really, those that stayed were entitled to 
precisely as much honor as those that went. Each 
man was doing his duty, and much the hardest and 
most disagreeable duty was to stay. Credit should 
go with the performance of duty, and not with what 
is very often the accident of glory. All this and 
much more we explained, but our explanations could 
not alter the fact that some had to be chosen and 
some had to be left. One of the Captains chosen 
was Captain Maximilian Luna, who commanded 
Troop F, from New Mexico. The Captain's people 
had been on the banks of the Rio Grande before my 
forefathers came to the mouth of the Hudson or 
Wood's landed at Plymouth; and he made the plea 
that it was his right to go as a representative of his 



58 The Rough Riders 

race, for he was the only man of pure Spanish blood 
who bore a commission in the army, and he de- 
manded the privilege of proving that his people were 
precisely as loyal Americans as any others. I was 
glad when it was decided to take him. 

It was the evening of June 7th when we suddenly 
received orders that the expedition was to start from 
Port Tampa, nine miles distant by rail, at daybreak 
the following morning; and that if we were not 
aboard our transport by that time we could not go. 
We had no intention of getting left, and prepared at 
once for the scramble which was evidently about to 
take place. As the number and capacity of the trans- 
ports were known, or ought to have been known, and 
as the number and size of the regiments to go were 
also known, the task of allotting each regiment or 
fraction of a regiment to its proper transport, and 
arranging that the regiments and the transports 
should meet in due order on the deck, ought not to 
have been difficult. However, no arrangements were 
made in advance ; and we were allowed to shove and 
hustle for ourselves as best we could, on much the 
same principles that had governed our preparations 
hitherto. 

We were oi^dered to be at a certain track with 
all our baggage at midnight, there to take a train 
for Port Tampa. At the appointed time we turned 
up, but the train did not. The men slept heavily, 



To Cuba S9 

while Wood and I and various other officers wan- 
dered about in search of information which no one 
could give. We now and then came across a Brig-a- 
dier-General, or even a Major-General ; but nobody 
knew anything. Some regiments got aboard the 
trains and some did not, but as none of the trains 
started this made little difference. At three o'clock 
we received orders to march over to an entirely dif- 
ferent track, and away we went. No train appeared 
on this track either; but at six o'clock some coal- 
cars came by, and these we seized. By various argu- 
ments we persuaded the engineer in charge of the 
train to back us down the nine miles to Port Tampa, 
where we arrived covered with coal-dust, but with 
all our belongings. 

The railway tracks ran out on the quay, and the 
transports, which had been anchored in midstream, 
were gradually being brought up alongside the quay 
and loaded. The trains were unloading wherever 
they happened to be, no attention whatever being 
paid to the possible position of the transport on 
which the soldiers were to go. Colonel Wood and 
I jumped off and started on a hunt, which soon con- 
vinced us that we had our work cut out if we were to 
get a transport at all. From the highest General 
down, nobody could tell us where to go to find out 
what transport we were to have. At last we were in- 
formed that we were to hunt up the depot quarter- 



6o The Rough Riders 

master, Colonel Humphrey. We found his office, 
where his assistant informed us that he didn't know 
where the Colonel was, but believed him to be asleep 
upon one of the transports. This seemed odd at such 
a tirne; but so many of the methods in vogue were 
odd, that we were quite prepared to accept it as a 
fact. However, it proved not to be such, but for 
an hour Colonel Humphrey might just as well have 
been asleep, as nobody knew where he was and no- 
body could find him, and the quay was crammed with 
some ten thousand men, most of whom were work- 
ing at cross purposes. 

At kst, however, after over an hour's industrious 
and rapid search through this swarming ant-heap of 
humanity. Wood and I, who had separated, found 
Colonel Humphrey at nearly the same time and were 
allotted a transport — the Yucatan. She was out in 
midstream, so Wood seized a stray launch and 
boarded her. At the same time I happened to find 
out that she had previously been allotted to two 
other regiments — the Second Regular Infantry and 
the Seventy-first New York Volunteers, which lat- 
ter regiment alone contained more men than could 
be put aboard her. Accordingly, I ran at full speed 
to our train ; and leaving a strong guard with the 
baggage, I double-quicked the rest of the regiment 
up to the boat, just in time to board her as she came 
into the quay, and then to hold her against the Sec- 



To Cuba 6 1 

ond Regulars and the Seventy-first, who had arrived 
a Httle too late, being a shade less ready than we 
were in the matter of individual initiative. There 
was a good deal of expostulation, but we had pos- 
session ; and as the ship could not contain half of the 
men who had been told to go aboard her, the Sev- 
enty-first went away, as did all but four companies 
of the Second. These latter we took aboard. Mean- 
while a General had caused our train to be unloaded 
at the end of the quay furthest from where the ship 
was; and the hungry, tired men spent most of the 
day in the labor of bringing down their baggage and 
the food and ammunition. 

The officers' horses were on another boat, my own 
being accompanied by my colored body-servant, 
Marshall, the most faithful and loyal of men, him- 
self an old soldier of the Ninth Cavalry. Marshall 
had been in Indian campaigns, and he christened 
my larger horse "Rain-in-the-Face," while the other, 
a pony, went by the name of "Texas." 

By the time that night fell, and our transport 
pulled off and anchored in midstream, we felt we 
had spent thirty-six tolerably active hours. The 
transport was overloaded, the men being packed like 
sardines, not only below but upon the decks ; so that 
at night it was only possible to walk about by con- 
tinually stepping over the bodies of the sleepers. 
The travel rations which had been issued to the men 



62 The Rough Riders 

for the voyage were not sufficient, because the meat 
was very bad indeed ; and when a ration consists of 
only four or five items, which taken together just 
meet the requirements of a strong and healthy man, 
the loss of one item is a serious thing. If we had 
been given canned combeef we would have been all 
right, but instead of this the soldiers were issued 
horrible stuff called "canned fresh beef." There 
was no salt in it. At the best it was stringy and 
tasteless ; at the worst it was nauseating. Not one- 
fourth of it was ever eaten at all, even when the men 
became very hungry. There were no facilities for 
the men to cook anything. There was no ice for 
them; the water was not good; and they had no 
fresh meat or fresh vegetables. 

However, all these things seemed of small impor- 
tance compared with the fact that we were really 
embarked, and were with the first expedition to leave 
our shores. But by next morning came the news 
that the order to sail had been countermanded, and 
that we were to stay where we were for the time 
being. What this meant none of us could under- 
stand. It turned out later to be due to the blunder 
of a naval officer who mistook some of our vessels 
for Spaniards, and by his report caused consterna- 
tion in Washington, until by vigorous scouting on 
the part of our other ships the illusion was dispelled. 

Meanwhile the troopships, packed tight with their 



To Cuba 62 

living freight, sweltered in the burning heat of 
Tampa Harbor. There was nothing whatever for 
the men to do, space being too cramped for amuse- 
ment or for more drill than was implied in the man- 
ual of arms. In this we drilled them assiduously, 
and we also continued to hold school for both the 
officers and the non-commissioned officers. Each 
troop commander was regarded as responsible for 
his own non-commissioned officers, and Wood or 
myself simply dropped in to superintend, just as we 
did with the manual at arms. In the officers' school 
Captain Capron was the special instructor, and a 
most admirable one he was. 

The heat, the steaming discomfort, and the con- 
finement, together with the forced inaction, were 
very irksome; but every one made the best of it, 
and there was little or no grumbling even among 
the men. All, from the highest to the lowest, were 
bent upon perfecting themselves according to their 
slender opportunities. Every book of tactics in the 
regiment was in use from morning until night, and 
the officers and non-commissioned officers were al- 
ways studying the problems presented at the schools. 
About the only amusement was bathing over the 
side, in which w^e indulged both in the morning and 
evening. Many of the men from the Far West had 
never seen the ocean. One of them who knew how 
to swim was much interested in finding that the 



64 The Rough Riders 

ocean water was not drinkable. Another, who had 
never in his Hfe before seen any water more exten- 
sive than the head-stream of the Rio Grande, met 
with an accident later in the voyage ; that is, his hat 
blew away while we were in mid-ocean, and I heard 
him explaining the accident to a friend in the fol- 
lowing words : "Oh-o-h, Jim ! Ma hat blew into the 
creek!" So we lay for nearly a week, the vessels 
swinging around on their anchor chains, while the 
hot water of the bay flowed to and fro around them 
and the sun burned overhead. 

At last, on the evening of June 13th, we received 
the welcome order to start. Ship after ship weighed 
anchor and went slowly ahead under half-steam for 
the distant mouth of the harbor, the bands playing, 
the flags flying, the rigging black with the clustered 
soldiers, cheering and shouting to those left behind 
on the quay and to their fellows on the other ships. 
The channel was very tortuous; and we anchored 
before we had gone far down it, after coming within 
an ace of a bad collision with' another transport. 
The next morning we were all again under way, and 
in the afternoon the great fleet steamed southeast 
until Tampa Light sank in the distance. 

For the next six days we sailed steadily south- 
ward and eastward through the wonderful sapphire 
seas of the West Indies. The thirty odd transports 
moved in long parallel lines, while ahead and behind 



To Cuba 65 

and on their flanks the gray hulls of the warships 
siirg-ed through the blue water. We had every va- 
riety of craft to guard us, from the mighty battleship 
and swift cruiser to the converted yachts and the 
frail, venomous-looking torpedo boats. The war- 
ships watched with ceaseless vigilance by day and 
night. When a sail of any kind appeared, instantly 
one of our guardians steamed toward it. Ordi- 
narily, the torpedo boats were towed. Once a strange 
ship steamed up too close, and instantly the nearest 
torpedo boat was slipped like a greyhound from the 
leash, and sped across the water toward it ; but the 
stranger proved harmless, and the swift, delicate, 
death-fraught craft returned again. 

It was very pleasant, sailing southward through 
the tropic seas toward the unknown. We knew not 
whither we were bound, nor what we were to do ; 
but we believed that the nearing future held for us 
many chances of death and hardship, of honor and 
renown. If we failed, we would share the fate of all 
who fail ; but we were sure that we would win, that 
we should score the first great triumph in a mighty 
world-movement. At night we looked at the new 
stars, and hailed the Southern Cross when at last we 
raised it above the horizon. In the daytime we 
drilled, and in the evening we held officers' school ; 
but there was much time when we had little to do, 
save to scan the wonderful blue sea and watch the 



66 The Rough Riders 

flying-fish. Toward evening, when the officers clus- 
tered together on the forward bridge, the band of the 
Second Infantry played tune after tune, until on our 
quarter the glorious sun sank in the red west, and, 
one by one, the lights blazed out on troopship and 
warship for miles ahead and astern, as they steamed 
onward through the brilliant tropic night. 

The men on the ship were young and strong, eager 
to face what lay hidden before them, eager for ad- 
venture where risk was the price of gain. Some- 
times they talked of what they might do in the 
future, and wondered whether we were to attack 
Santiago or Porto Rico. At other times, as they 
lounged in groups, they told stories of their past 
— stories of the mining camps and the cattle ranges, 
of hunting bear and deer, of war-trails against the 
Indians, of lawless deeds of violence and the lawful 
violence by which they were avenged, of brawls in 
saloons, of shrewd deals in cattle and sheep, of suc- 
cessful quest for the precious metals; stories of 
brutal wrong and brutal appetite, melancholy love- 
tales, and memories of nameless heroes — masters of 
men and tamers of horses. 

The officers, too, had many strange experiences to 
relate; none, not even Llewellen or O'Neill, had 
been through what was better worth telling, or 
could tell it better, than Capron. He had spent 
years among the Apaches, the wildest and fiercest 



To Cuba 67 

of tribes, and again and again had owed his Hfe 
to his own cool judgment and extraordinary per- 
sonal prowess. He knew the sign language, famil- 
iar to all the Indians of the mountains and the 
plains ; and it was curious to find that the signs for 
different animals, for water, for sleep and death, 
which he knew from holding intercourse with the 
tribes of the Southeast, were exactly like those 
which I had picked up on my occasional hunting 
or trading trips among the Sioux and Mandans of 
the North. He was a great rifle shot and wolf 
hunter, and had many tales to tell of the deeds of 
gallant hounds and the feats of famous horses. He 
had handled his Indian scouts and dealt with the 
"bronco" Indians, the renegades from the tribes, 
in circumstances of extreme peril; for he had seen 
the sullen, moody Apaches when they suddenly went 
crazy with wolfish blood-lust, and in their madness 
wished to kill whomever was nearest. He knew, so 
far as white man could know, their ways of thought, 
and how to humor and divert them when on the 
brink of some dangerous outbreak. Capron's train- 
ing and temper fitted him to do great work in war ; 
and he looked forward with eager confidence to what 
the future held, for he was sure that for him it held 
either triumph or death. Death was the prize he 
drew. 

Most of the men had simple souls. They could 



68 ' The Rough Riders 

relate facts, but they said very little about what 
they dimly felt. Bucky O'Neill, however, the iron- 
nerved, iron-willed fighter from Arizona, the Sheriff 
whose name was a byword of terror to every wrong- 
doer, white or red, the gambler who with unmoved 
face would stake and lose every dollar he had in the 
world — he, alone among his comrades, was a vision- 
ary, an articulate emotionalist. He was very quiet 
about it, never talking unless he was sure of his 
listener; but at night, when we leaned on the rail- 
ing to look at the Southern Cross, he was less apt to 
tell tales of his hard and stormy past than he was to 
speak of the mysteries which lie behind courage, 
and fear, and love, behind animal hatred, and ani- 
mal lust for the pleasures that have tangible shape. 
He had keenly enjoyed life, and he could breast its 
turbulent torrent as few men could ; he was a prac- 
tical man, who knew how to wrest personal success 
from adverse forces, among money-makers, poli- 
ticians, and desperadoes alike ; yet, down at bottom, 
what seemed to interest him most was the philosophy 
of life itself, of our understanding of it, and of the 
limitations set to that understanding. But he was 
as far as possible from being a mere dreamer of 
dreams. A stanchly loyal and generous friend, he 
was also exceedingly ambitious on his own account. 
If, by risking his life, no matter how great the risk, 
he could gain high military distinction, he was bent 



To Cuba 6g 

on gaining it. He had taken so many chances when 
death lay on the hazard, that he felt the odds were 
now against him_; but, said he, "Who would not risk 
his life for a star?" Had he lived, and had the war 
lasted, he would surely have won the eagle, if not 
the star. 

We had a good deal of trouble with the trans- 
ports, chiefly because they were not under the con- 
trol of the navy. One of them was towing a 
schooner, and another a scow ; both, of course, kept 
lagging behind. Finally, when we had gone nearly 
the length of Cuba, the transport with the schooner 
sagged very far behind, and then our wretched trans- 
port was directed by General Shafter to fall out of 
line and keep her company. Of course, we executed 
the order, greatly to the wrath of Captain Clover, 
who, in the gunboat Bancroft, had charge of the rear 
of the column — for we could be of no earthly use to 
the other transport, and by our presence simply 
added just so much to Captain Clover's anxiety, as 
he had two transports to protect Instead of one. 
Next morning the rest of the convoy were out of 
sight, but we reached them just as they finally 
turned. 

Until this we had steamed with the trade-wind 
blowing steadily in our faces; but once we were well 
to eastward of Cuba, we ran southwest with the 
wind behind on our quarter, and we all knew that 



70 The Rough Riders 

our destination was Santiago. On the morning of 
the 20th we were close to the Cuban coast. High 
mountains rose almost from the water's edge, look- 
ing huge and barren across the sea. We sped on- 
ward past Guantanamo Bay, where we saw the little 
picket-ships of the fleet; and in the afternoon we 
sighted Santiago Harbor, with the great warships 
standing off and on in front of it, gray and sullen in 
their war-paint. 

All next day we rolled and wallowed in the sea- 
way, waiting until a decision was reached as to 
where we should land. On the morning of June 
22d the welcome order for landing came. 

We did the landing as we had done everything 
else — that is, in a scramble, each commander shift- 
ing for himself. The port at which we landed was 
called Daiquiri, a squalid little village where there 
had been a railway and iron-works. There were no 
facilities for landing, and the fleet did not have a 
quarter the number of boats it should have had for 
the purpose. All we could do was to stand in with 
the transports as close as possible, and then row 
ashore in our own few boats and the boats of the 
warships. Luck favored our regiment. My former 
naval aide, while I was Assistant Secretary of the 
Navy, Lieutenant Sharp, was in command of the 
Vixen, a converted yacht; and everything being 
managed on the go-as-you-please principle, he 



To Cuba 71 

steamed by us and offered to help put us ashore. 
Of course, we jumped at the chance. Wood and I 
boarded the Vixen, and there we got Lieutenant 
Sharp's black Cuban pilot, who told us he could 
take our transport right in to within a few hundred 
yards of the land. Accordingly, we put him aboard ; 
and in he brought her, gaining at least a mile and a 
half by the manceuvre. The other transports fol- 
lowed ; but we had our berth, and were all right. 

There was plenty of excitement to the landing. 
In the first place, the smaller war vessels shelled 
Daiquiri, so as to dislodge any Spaniards who might 
be lurking in the neighborhood, and also shelled 
other places along the coast, to keep the enemy puz- 
zled as to our intentions. Then the surf was high, 
and the landing difficult ; so that the task of getting 
the men, the ammunition, and provisions ashore was 
not easy. Each man carried three days' field rations 
and a hundred rounds of ammunition. Our regi- 
ment had accumulated two rapid-fire Colt automatic 
guns, the gift of Stevens, Kane, Tiffany, and one 
or two others of the New York men, and also a 
dynamite gun, under the immediate charge of Ser- 
geant Borrowe. To get these, and especially the 
last, ashore, involved no little work and hazard. 
Meanwhile, from another transport, our horses were 
being landed, together with the mules, by the simple 
process of throwing them overboard and letting 



72 The Rough Riders 

them swim ashore, if they could. Both of Wood's 
got safely through. One of mine was drowned. 
The other, little Texas, got ashore all right. While 
I was superintending the landing at the ruined dock, 
with Bucky O'Neill, a boatful of colored infantry 
soldiers capsized, and two of the men went to the 
bottom ; Bucky O'Neill plunging in, in full uniform, 
to save them, but in vain. 

However, by the late afternoon we had all our 
men, with what ammunition and provisions they 
could themselves carry, landed, and were ready for 
anything that might turn up. 



Ill 

GENERAL YOUNG's FIGHT AT LAS GUASIMAS 

JUST before leaving- Tampa we had been bri- 
gaded with the First (white) and Tenth (col- 
ored) Regular Cavalry under Brigadier-General S. 
B. M. Young. We were the Second Brigade, the 
First Brigade consisting of the Third and .Sixth 
(white), and the Ninth (colored) Regular Cavalry 
under Brigadier-General Sumner. The two brigades 
of the cavalry division were uider Major-General 
Joseph Wheeler, the gallant old Confederate cav- 
alry commander. 

General Young was — and is — as fine a type of 
the American fighting soldier as a man can hope 
to see. He had been in command, as Colonel, of 
the Yellowstone National Park, and I had seen a 
good deal of him in connection therewith, as I was 
President of the Boone and Crockett Club, an or- 
ganization devoted to hunting big game, to its 
preservation, and to forest preservation. During 
the preceding winter, while he was in Washington, 
he had lunched with me at the Metropolitan Club, 
Wood being one of the other guests. Of course. 
Vol. XL— D (73) 



74 The Rough Riders 

we talked of the war, which all of us present be- 
lieved to be impending, and Wood and I told him 
we were going to make every effort to get in, some- 
how; and he answered that we must be sure to get 
into his brigade, if he had one, and he would guaran- 
tee to show us fighting. None of us forgot the con- 
versation. As soon as our regiment was raised Gen- 
eral Young applied for it to be put in his brigade. 
We were put in ; and he made his word good ; for he 
■fought and won the first fight on Cuban soil. 

Yet, even though under him, we should not have 
been in this fight at all if wt had not taken advan- 
tage of the chance to disembark among the first 
troops, and if it had not been for Wood's energy in 
pushing our regiment to the front. 

On landing we spent some active hours in march- 
ing our men a quarter of a mile or so inland, as boat- 
load by boat-load they disembarked. Meanwhile 
one of the men, Knoblauch, a New Yorker, who was 
a great athlete and a champion swimmer, by diving 
in the surf off the dock, recovered most of the rifles 
which had been lost when the boat-load of colored 
cavalry capsized. The country would have offered 
very great difficulties to an attacking force had 
there been resistance. It was little but a mass of 
rugged and precipitous hills, covered for the most 
part by dense jungle. Five hundred resolute men 
could have prevented the disembarkation at very lit- 



Young's Fight at Las Guasimas 75 

tie cost to themselves. There had been about that 
number of Spaniards at Daiquiri that morning, but 
they had fled even before the ships began shelling. 
In their place we found hundreds of Cuban insur- 
gents, a crew of as utter tatterdemalions as human 
eyes ever looked on, armed with every kind of rifle 
in all stages of dilapidation. It was evident, at a 
glance, that they would be no use in serious fighting, 
but it was hoped that they might be of service in 
scouting. From a variety of causes, however, they 
turned out to be nearly useless, even for this pur- 
pose, so far as the Santiago campaign was con- 
cerned. 

We were camped on a dusty, brush-covered flat, 
with jungle on one side, and on the other a shallow, 
fetid pool fringed with palm-trees. Huge land-crabs 
scuttled noisily through the underbrush, exciting 
much interest among the men. Camping was a 
simple matter, as each man carried all he had, and 
the officers had nothing. I took a light mackintosh 
and a toothbrush. Fortunately, that night it did not 
rain; and from the palm-leaves we built shelters 
from the sun. 

General Lawton, a tall, fine-looking man, had 
taken the advance. A thorough soldier, he at once 
established outposts and pushed reconnoitring parties 
ahead on the trails. He had as little baggage as the 
rest of us. Our own Brigade-Commander, General 



76 The Rough Riders 

Young, had exactly the same impedimenta that I 
had, namely, a mackintosh and a toothbrush. 

Next morning we were hard at work trying to 
get the stuff unloaded from the ship, and succeeded 
in getting most of it ashore, but were utterly un- 
able to get transportation for anything but a very 
small quantity. The great shortcoming throughout 
the campaign was the utterly inadequate transpor- 
tation. If we had been allowed to take our mule- 
train, we could have kept the whole cavalry division 
supplied. 

In the afternoon word came to us to march. 
General Wheeler, a regular game-cock, was as anx- 
ious as Lawton to get first blood, and he was bent 
upon putting the cavalry division to the front as 
quickly as possible. Lawton's advance-guard was 
in touch with the Spaniards, and there had been a 
skirmish between the latter and some Cubans, who 
were repulsed. General Wheeler made a reconnois- 
sance in person, found out where the enemy was, 
and directed General Young to take our brigade and 
move forw^ard so as to strike him next morning. 
He had the power to do this, as when General Shaf- 
ter was afloat he had command ashore. 

I had succeeded in finding Texas, my surviving 
horse, much the worse for his fortnight on the trans- 
port and his experience in getting off, but still able 
to carry me. 



Young's Fight at Las Guasimas 77 

It was mid-afternoon and the tropic sun was 
beating fiercely down when Colonel Wood started 
our regiment— the First and Tenth Cavalry and 
some of the infantry regiments having already 
marched. Colonel Wood himself rode in advance, 
while I led my squadron, and Major Brodie fol- 
lowed with his. It was a hard march, the hilly 
jungle trail being so narrow that often we had to 
go in single file. We marched fast, for Wood was 
bound to get us ahead of the other regiments, so as 
to be sure of our place in the body that struck the 
enemy next morning. If it had not been for his 
energy in pushing forward, we should certainly have 
missed the fight. As it was, we did not halt until 
we were at the extreme front. 

The men were not in very good shape for march- 
ing, and moreover they were really horsemen, the 
majority being cowboys who had never done much 
walking. The heat was intense and their burdens 
very heavy. Yet there was very little straggling. 
Whenever we halted they instantly took off their 
packs and threw themselves on their backs. Then 
at the word to start they would spring into place 
again. The captains and lieutenants tramped along, 
encouraging the men by example and by word. A 
good part of the time I was by Captain Llewellen, 
and was greatly pleased to see the way in which 
he kept his men up to their work. He never pitied 



78 The Rough Riders 

or coddled his troopers, but he always looked after 
them. He helped them whenever he could, and 
took rather more than his full share of hardship 
and danger, so that his men naturally followed him 
with entire devotion. Jack Greenway was under 
him as lieutenant, and to him the entire march 
was nothing but an enjoyable outing, the chance 
of fight on the morrow simply adding the needed 
spice of excitement. 

It was long after nightfall when we tramped 
through the darkness into the squalid coast hamlet 
of Siboney. As usual when we made a night camp, 
we simply drew the men up in column of troops, 
and then let each man lie down where he was. 
Black thunder-clouds were gathering. Before they 
broke the fires were made and the men cooked 
their coffee and pork, some frying the hard-tack 
with the pork. The officers, of course, fared just 
as the men did. Hardly had we finished eating 
when the rain came, a regular tropic downpour. 
We sat about, sheltering ourselves as best we could, 
for the hour or two it lasted; then the fires were 
relighted and we closed around them, the men tak- 
ing off their wet things to dry them, so far as pos- 
sible, by the blaze. 

Wood had gone off to see General Young, as 
General Wheeler had instructed General Young to 
hit the Spaniards, who were about four miles away, 



Young's Fight at Las Guasimas 79 

as soon after daybreak as possible. Meanwhile I 
strolled over to Captain Capron's troop. He and 
I, with his two lieutenants, Day and Thomas, stood 
around the fire, together with two or three non- 
commissioned officers and privates; among the lat- 
ter were Sergeant Hamilton Fish and Trooper El- 
liot Cowdin, both of New York. Cowdin, together 
with two other troopers, Harry Thorpe and Munro 
Ferguson, had been on my Oyster Bay Polo Team 
some years before. Hamilton Fish had already 
shown himself one of the best non-commissioned 
officers we had. A huge fellow, of enormous 
strength and endurance and dauntless courage, he 
took naturally to a soldier's life. He never com- 
plained and never shirked any duty of any kind, 
while his power over his men was great. So good 
a sergeant had he made that Captain Capron, keen 
to get the best men under him, took him when he 
left Tampa — for Fish's troop remained behind. As 
we stood around the flickering blaze that night I 
caught myself admiring the splendid bodily vigor 
of Capron and Fish — the captain and the sergeant. 
Their frames seemed of steel, to withstand all fa- 
tigue; they were flushed with health; in their eyes 
shone high resolve and fiery desire. Two finer types 
of the fighting man, two better representatives of the 
American soldier, there were not in the whole army. 
Capron was going over his plans for the fight when 



8o The Rough Riders 

we should meet the Spaniards on the morrow, Fish 
occasionally asking a question. They were both 
filled with eager longing to show their mettle, and 
both were rightly confident that if they lived they 
would win honorable renown and would rise hieh 
in their chosen profession. Within twelve hours 
they both were dead. 

I had lain down when toward midnight Wood 
returned. He had gone over the whole plan with 
General Young. We were to start by sunrise 
toward Santiago, General Young taking four troops 
of the Tenth and four troops of the First up the 
road which led through the valley; while Colonel 
Wood was to lead our eight troops along a hill-trail 
to the left, which joined the valley road about four 
miles on, at a point where the road went over a 
spur of the mountain chain and from thence went 
down hill toward Santiago. The Spaniards had 
their lines at the junction of the road and the trail. 

Before describing our part in the fight, it is nec- 
essary to say a word about General Young's share, 
for, of course, the whole fight was under his di- 
rection, and the fight on the right wing under his 
immediate supervision. General Young had obtained 
from General Castillo, the commander of the Cuban 
forces, a full description of the country in front. 
General Castillo promised Young the aid of eight 
hundred Cubans, if he made a reconnaissance in force 



Young's Fight at Las Guasimas 8i 

to find out exactly what the Spanish strength was. 
This promised aid did not, however, materiahze, 
the Cubans, who had been beaten back by the Span- 
iards the day before, not appearing on the firing- 
Hne until the fight was over. 

General Young had in his immediate command 
a squadron of the First Regular Cavalry, two hun- 
dred and forty-four strong, under the command of 
Major Bell, and a squadron of the Tenth Regular 
Cavalry, two hundred and twenty strong, under the 
command of Major Norvell. He also had two 
Hotchkiss mountain guns, under Captain Watson 
of the Tenth. He started at a quarter before six 
in the morning, accompanied by Captain A. L. Mills, 
as aide. It was at half-past seven that Captain 
Mills, with a patrol of two men in advance, dis- 
covered the Spaniards as they lay across where the 
two roads came together, some of them in pits, 
others simply lying in the heavy jungle, while on 
their extreme right they occupied a big ranch. 
Where General Young struck them they held a high 
ridge a little to the left of his front, this ridge being 
separated by a deep ravine from the hill-trail still 
further to the left, down which the Rough Riders 
were advancing. That is, their forces occupied a 
range of high hills in the form of an obtuse angle, 
the salient being toward the space between the 
American forces, while there were advance parties 



82 The Rough Riders 

along both roads. There were stone breastworks 
flanked by block-houses on that part of the ridge 
where the two trails came together. The place was 
called Las Guasimas, from trees of that name in 
the neighborhood. 

General Young, who was riding a mule, carefully 
examined the Spanish position in person. He or- 
dered the canteens of the troops to be filled, placed 
the Hotchkiss battery in concealment about nine 
hundred yards from the Spanish lines, and then de- 
ployed the white regulars, with the colored regulars 
in support, having sent a Cuban guide to try to 
find Colonel Wood and warn him. He did not at- 
tack immediately, because he knew that Colonel 
Wood, having a more difficult route, would require 
a longer time to reach the position. During the de- 
lay General Wheeler arrived ; he had been up since 
long before dawn, to see that everything went well. 
Young informed him of the dispositions and plan 
of attack he had made. General Wheeler approved 
of them, and with excellent judgment left General 
Young a free hand to fight his battle. 

So, about eight o'clock Young began the fight 
with his Hotchkiss guns, he himself being up on 
the firing-line. No sooner had the Hotchkiss one- 
pounders opened than the Spaniards opened fire in 
return, most of the time firing by volleys executed 
in perfect time, almost as on parade. They had 



Young's Fight at Las Guasimas 83 

a couple of light guns, which our people thought 
were quick firers. The denseness of the jungle, and 
the fact that they used absolutely smokeless powder, 
made it exceedingly difficult to place exactly where 
they were, and almost immediately Young, who al- 
ways liked to get as close as possible to his enemy, 
began to push his troops forward. They were de- 
ployed on both sides of the road in such thick jungle 
that it was only here and there that they could pos- 
sibly see ahead, and some confusion, of course, en- 
sued, the support gradually getting mixed with the 
advance. Captain Beck took A Troop of the Tenth 
in on the left, next Captain Galbraith's troops of 
the First; two other troops of the Tenth were on 
the extreme right. Through the jungle ran wire 
fences here and there, and as the troops got to the 
ridge they encountered precipitous heights. They 
were led most gallantly, as American regular officers 
always lead their men; and the men followed their 
leaders with the splendid courage always shown by 
the American regular soldier. There was not a 
single straggler among them, and in not one instance 
was an attempt made by any trooper to fall out in 
order to assist the wounded or carry back the dead, 
while so cool were they and so perfect their fire 
discipline, that in the entire engagement the expen- 
diture of ammunition was not over ten rounds per 
man. Major Bell, who commanded the squadron, 



^4 The Rough Riders 

had his leg broken by a shot as he was leading his 
men. Captain Wainwright succeeded to the com- 
mand of the squadron. Captain Knox was shot 
in the abdomen. He continued for some time giving 
orders to his troops, and refused to allow a man 
in the firing-line to assist him to the rear. His First 
Lieutenant, Byram, was himself shot, but continued 
to lead his men until the wound and the heat over- 
came him and he fell in a faint. The advance was 
pushed forward under General Young's eye with the 
utmost energy, until the enemy's voices could be 
heard in the intrenchments. The Spaniards kept up 
a very heavy firing, but the regulars would not be 
denied, and as they climbed the ridges the Spaniards 
broke and fled. 

Meanwhile, at six o'clock, the Rough Riders be- 
gan their advance. We first had to climb a very 
steep hill. Many of the men, footsore and weary 
from their march of the preceding day, found the 
pace up this hill too hard, and either dropped their 
bundles or fell out of line, with the result that we 
went into action with less than five hundred men — 
as, in addition to the stragglers, a detachment had 
been left to guard the baggage on shore. At the 
time I was rather inclined to grumble to myself 
about Wood setting so fast a pace, but when the 
fight began I realized that it had been absolutely 
necessary, as otherwise we should have arrived late 



Young's Fight at Las Guasimas 85 

and the regulars would have had very hard work 
indeed. Tiffany, by great exertions, had corraled a 
couple of mules and was using them to transport the 
Colt automatic guns in the rear of the regiment. 
The dynamite gun was not with us, as mules for it 
could not be obtained in time. 

Captain Capron's troop was in the lead, it being 
chosen for the most responsible and dangerous po- 
sition because of Capron's capacity. Four men, 
headed by Sergeant Hamilton Fish, went first; a 
support of twenty men followed some distance be- 
hind; and then came Capron and the rest of his 
troop, followed by Wood, with whom General 
Young had sent Lieutenants Smedburg and Rivers 
as aides. I rode close behind, at the head of the 
other three troops of my squadron, and then came 
Brodie at the head of his squadron. The trail was 
so narrow that for the most part the men marched 
in single file, and it was bordered by dense, tangled 
jungle, through which a man could with difficulty 
force his way; so that to put out flankers was im- 
possible, for they could not possibly have kept up 
with the march of the column. Every man had his 
canteen full. There was a Cuban guide at the head 
of the column, but he ran away as soon as the fight- 
ing began. There were also with us, at the head 
of the column, two men who did not run away, who, 
though non-combatants — newspaper correspondents 



86 The Rough Riders 

— showed as much gallantry as any soldier in the 
field. They were Edward Marshall and Richard 
Harding Davis. 

After reaching the top of the hill the walk was 
very pleasant. Now and then we came to glades 
or rounded hill-shoulders, whence we could look off 
for some distance. The tropical forest was very 
beautiful, and it was a delight to see the strange 
trees, the splendid royal palms and a tree which 
looked like a flat-topped acacia, and which was cov- 
ered with a mass of brilliant scarlet flowers. We 
heard many bird-notes, too, the cooing of doves and 
the. call of a great brush cuckoo. Afterward we 
found that the Spanish guerillas imitated these bird- 
calls, but the sounds we heard that morning, as we 
advanced through the tropic forest, were from birds, 
not guerillas, until we came right up to the Span- 
ish lines. It was very beautiful and very peaceful, 
and it seemed more as if we were off on some hunt- 
ing excursion than as if we were about to go into 
a sharp and bloody little fight. 

Of course, we accommodated our movements to 
those of the men in front. After marching for some- 
what over an hour, we suddenly came to a halt, and 
immediately afterward Colonel Wood sent word 
down the line that the advance guard had come 
upon a Spanish outpost. Then the order was passed 
to fill the magazines, which was done. 



Young's Fight at Las Guasimas 87 

The men were totally unconcerned, and I do not 
think they realized that any fighting was at hand; 
at any rate, I could hear the group nearest me dis- 
cussing in low murmurs, not the Spaniards, but the 
conduct of a certain cow-puncher in quitting work 
on a ranch and starting a saloon in some New 
Mexican town. In another minute, however, Wood 
sent me orders to deploy three troops to the right 
of the trail, and to advance when we became en- 
gaged; while, at the same time, the other troops, 
under Major Brodie, were deployed to the left of the 
trail where the ground was more open than else- 
where — one troop being held in reserve in the cen- 
tre, besides the reserves on each wing. Later all 
the reserves were put into the firing-line. 

To the right the jungle was quite thick, and we 
had barely begun to deploy when a crash in front 
announced that the fight was on. It was evidently 
very hot, and L Troop had its hands full; so I 
hurried my men up abreast of them. So thick was 
the jungle that it was very difficult to keep together, 
especially when there was no time for delay, and 
while I got up Llewellen's troops and Kane's pla- 
toon of K Troop, the rest of K Troop under Cap- 
tain Jenkins which, with Bucky O'NeiU's troop, 
made up the right wing, were behind, and it was 
some time before they got into the fight at all. 

Meanwhile I had gone forward with Llewellen, 



88 The Rough' Riders 

Greenway, Kane and their troopers until we came 
out on a kind of shoulder, jutting over a ravine, 
which separated us from a great ridge on our right. 
It was on this ridge that the Spaniards had some 
of their intrenchments, and it was just beyond this 
ridge that the Valley Road led, up which the regu- 
lars were at that very time pushing their attack; 
but, of course, at the moment we knew nothing of 
this. The effect of the smokeless powder was re- 
markable. The air seemed full of the rustling sound 
of the Mauser bullets, for the Spaniards knew the 
trails by which we were advancing, and opened 
heavily on our position. Moreover, as we advanced 
we were, of course, exposed, and they could see us 
and fire. But they themselves were entirely in- 
visible. The jungle covered everything, and not 
the faintest trace of smoke was to be seen in any 
direction to indicate from whence the bullets came. 
It was some time before the men fired; Llewellen, 
Kane, and I anxiously studying the ground to see 
where our opponents were, and utterly unable to 
find out. 

We could hear the faint reports of the Hotchkiss 
guns and the reply of two Spanish guns, and the 
Mauser bullets were singing through the trees over 
our heads, making a noise like the humming of 
telephone wires ; but exactly where they came from 
we could not tell. The Spaniards were firing high 



Young's Fight at Las Guasimas 89 

and for the most part by volleys, and their shooting 
was not very good, which perhaps was not to be 
wondered at, as they were a long way off. Grad- 
ually, however, they began to get the range and oc- 
casionally one of our men would crumple up. In 
no case did the man make any outcry when hit, 
seeming to take it as a matter of course ; at the out- 
side, making only such a remark as, "Well, I got it 
that time." With hardly an exception, there was 
no sign of flinching. I say with hardly an excep- 
tion, for though I personally did not see an instance, 
and though all the men at the front behaved excel- 
lently, yet there were a very few men who lagged 
behind and drifted back to the trail over which we 
had come. The character of the fight put a premium 
upon such conduct, and afforded a very severe test 
for raw troops because the jungle was so dense 
that as we advanced in open order, every man was, 
from time to time, left almost alone and away from 
the eyes of his officers. There was unlimited oppor- 
tunity for dropping out without attracting notice, 
while it was peculiarly hard to be exposed to the 
fire of an unseen foe, and to see men dropping under 
it, and yet to be for some time unable to return it, 
and also to be entirely ignorant of what was going 
on in any other part of the field. 

It was Richard Harding Davis who gave us our 
first opportunity to shoot back with effect. He was 



90 The Rough Riders 

behaving precisely like my officers, being on the 
extreme front of the line, and taking every oppor- 
tunity to study with his glasses the ground where 
we thought the Spaniards were. I had tried some 
volley firing at points where I rather doubtfully 
believed the Spaniards to be, but had stopped firing 
and was myself studying the jungle-covered moun- 
tain ahead with my glasses, when Davis suddenly 
said: "There they are, Colonel; look over there; I 
can see their hats near that glade," pointing across 
the valley to our right. In a minute I, too, made 
out the hats, and then pointed them out to three or 
four of our best shots, giving them my estimate of 
the range. For a minute or two no result followed, 
and I kept raising the range, at the same time get- 
ting more men on the firing-line. Then, evidently, 
the shots told, for the Spaniards suddenly sprang 
out of the cover through which we had seen their 
hats, and ran to another spot; and we could now 
make out a large number of them. 

I accordingly got all of my men up in line and 
began quick firing. In a very few minutes our bul- 
lets began to do damage, for the Spaniards retreat- 
ed to the left into the jungle, and we lost sight of 
them. At the same moment a big body of men who, 
it afterward turned out, were Spaniards, came in 
sight along the glade, following the retreat of those 
whom we had just driven from the trenches. We 



Young's Fight at Las Guasimas 91 

supposed that there was a large force of Cubans 
with General Young, not being aware that these 
Cubans had failed to make their appearance, and 
as it was impossible to tell the Cubans from the 
Spaniards, and as we could not decide whether 
these were Cubans following the Spaniards we had 
put to flight, or merely another troop of Spaniards 
retreating after the first (which was really the case) 
we dared not fire, and in a minute they had passed 
the glade and were out of sight. 

At every halt we took advantage of the cover, 
sinking down behind any mound, bush, or tree- 
trunk in the neighborhood. The trees, of course, 
furnished no protection from the Mauser bullets. 
Once I was standing behind a large palm with my 
head out to one side, very fortunately; for a bullet 
passed through the palm, filling my left eye and ear 
with the dust and splinters. 

No man was allowed to drop out to help the 
wounded. It was hard to leave them there in the 
jungle, where they might not be found again until 
the vultures and the land-crabs came, but war is a 
grim game and there was no choice. One of the 
men shot was Harry Heffner of G Troop, who 
was mortally wounded through the hips. He fell 
without uttering a sound, and two of his compan- 
ions dragged him behind a tree. Here he propped 
himself up and asked to be given his canteen and 



92 The Rough Riders 

his rifle, which I handed to him. He then again 
began shooting, and continued loading and firing 
until the line moved forward and we left him 
alone, dying in the gloomy shade. When we found 
him again, after the fight, he was dead. 

At one time, as I was out of touch with that part 
of my wing commanded by Jenkins and O'Neill, I 
sent Greenway, with Sergeant Russell, a New York- 
er, and trooper Rowland, a New Mexican cow- 
puncher, down in the valley to find out where they 
were. To do this the three had to expose them- 
selves to a very severe fire, but they were not men to 
whom this mattered. Russell was killed ; the other 
Uyo returned and reported to me the position of 
Jenkins and O'Neill. They then resumed their 
places on the firing-line. After a while I noticed 
blood coming out of Rowland's side and discovered 
that he had been shot, although he did not seem to 
be taking any notice of it. He said the wound was 
only slight, but as I saw he had broken a rib, I told 
him to go to the rear to the hospital. After some 
grumbling he went, but fifteen minutes later he was 
back on the firing-line again and said he could not 
find the hospital — which I doubted. However, I 
then let him stay until the end of the fight. 

After we had driven the Spaniards off from their 
position to our right, the firing seemed to die away 
so far as we were concerned, for the bullets no 



Young's Fight at Las Guasimas 93 

longer struck around us in such a storm as before, 
though along the rest of the hne the battle was as 
brisk as ever. Soon we saw troops appearing across 
the ravine, not very far from where we had seen the 
Spaniards whom we had thought might be Cubans. 
Again we dared not fire, and carefully studied the 
new-comers with our glasses; and this time we 
were right, for we recognized our own cavalry-men. 
We were by no means sure that they recognized us, 
however, and were anxious that they should, but 
it was very difficult to find a clear spot in the jungle 
from which to signal ; so Sergeant Lee of Troop K 
climbed a tree and from its summit waved the troop 
guidon. They waved their guidon back, and as 
our right wing was now in touch with the regulars, 
I left Jenkins and O'Neill to keep the connection, 
and led Llewellen's troop back to the path to join 
the rest of the regiment, which was evidently still 
in the thick of the fight. I was still very much in 
the dark as to where the main body of the Spanish 
forces were, or exactly what lines the battle was 
following, and was very uncertain what I ought to 
do ; but I knew it could not be wrong to go forward, 
and I thought I would find Wood and then see 
what he wished me to do. I was in a mood to 
cordially welcome guidance, for it was most be- 
wildering to fight an enemy whom one so rarely 
saw. 



94 The Rough Riders 

I had not seen Wood since the beginning of 
the skirmish, when he hurried forward. When the 
firing opened some of the men began to curse. 
"Don't swear — shoot !" growled Wood, as he strode 
along the path leading his horse, and everyone 
laughed and became cool again. The Spanish out- 
posts were very near our advance guard, and some 
minutes of the hottest kind of firing followed before 
they were driven back and slipped off through the 
jungle to their main lines in the rear. 

Here, at the very outset of our active service, we 
suffered the loss of two as gallant men as ever wore 
uniform. Sergeant Hamilton Fish at the extreme 
front, while holding the point up to its work and 
firing back where the Spanish advance guards lay, 
was shot and instantly killed ; three of the men with 
him were likewise hit. Captain Capron, leading the 
advance guard in person, and displaying equal cour- 
age and coolness in the way that he handled them, 
was also struck, and died a few minutes afterward. 
The command of the troop then devolved upon 
the First Lieutenant, young Thomas. Like Capron, 
Thomas was the fifth in line from father to son 
who had served in the American army, though in 
his case it was in the volunteer and not the regular 
service; the four preceding generations had fur- 
nished soldiers respectively to the Revolutionary 
War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the 



Young's Fight at Las Guasimas 95 

Civil War. In a few minutes Thomas was shot 
through the leg, and the command devolved upon 
the Second Lieutenant, Day (a nephew of "Albe- 
marle" Gushing, he who sunk the great Confederate 
ram). Day, who proved himself to be one of our 
most efficient officers, continued to handle the men 
to the best possible advantage, and brought them 
steadily forward. L. Troop was from the Indian 
Territory. The whites, Indians, and half-breeds in 
it all fought with equal courage. Captain McClin- 
tock was hurried forward to its relief with his Troop 
B of Arizona men. In a few minutes he was shot 
through the leg and his place was taken by his First 
Lieutenant, Wilcox, who handled his men in the 
same soldierly manner that Day did. 

Among the men who showed marked courage and 
coolness was the tall color-sergeant, Wright; the 
colors were shot through three times. 

When I had led G Troop back to the trail I ran 
ahead of them, passing the dead and wounded men 
of L troop, passing young Fish as he lay with 
glazed eyes under the rank tropic growth to one 
side of the trail. When I came to the front I found 
the men spread out in a very thin skirmish line, 
advancing through comparatively open ground, 
each man taking advantage of what cover he could, 
while Wood strolled about leading his horse, Brodie 
being close at hand. How Wood escaped being hit, 



9^ The Rough Riders 

I do not see, and still less how his horse escaped. 
I had left mine at the beginning of the action, and 
was only regretting that I had not left my sword 
with it, as it kept getting between my legs when I 
was tearing my way through the jungle. I never 
wore it again in action. Lieutenant Rivers was with 
Wood, also leading his horse. Smedburg had been 
sent off on the by no means pleasant task of estab- 
lishing communications wnth Young. 

Very soon after I reached the front, Brodie was 
hit, the bullet shattering one arm and \yhirling him 
around as he stood. He had kept on the extreme 
front all through, his presence and example keep- 
ing his men entirely steady, and he at first refused 
to go to the rear ; but the wound was very painful, 
and he became so faint that he had to 'be sent. 
Thereupon, Wood directed me to take charge of the 
left wing in Brodie's place, and to bring it forward ; 
so over I went. 

I now had under me Captains Luna, Muller and 
Houston, and I began to take them forward, well 
spread out, through the high grass of a rather open 
forest. I noticed Goodrich, of Houston's troop, 
tramping along behind his men, absorbed in making 
them keep at good intervals from one another and 
fire slowly with careful aim. As I came close up 
to the edge of the troop, he caught a glimpse of me, 
mistook me for one of his own skirmishers who was 



Young's Fight at Las Guasimas 97 

crowding in too closely, and called out, "Keep 
your interval, sir; keep your interval, and go 
forward !" 

A perfect hail of bullets was sweeping over us as 
we advanced. Once I got a glimpse of some Span- 
iards, apparently retreating, far in the front, and 
to our right, and we fired a couple of rounds after 
them. Then I became convinced, after much anxi- 
ous study, that we were being fired at from some 
large red-tiled buildings, part of a ranch on our 
front. Smokeless powder, and the thick cover in 
our front, continued to puzzle us, and I more than 
once consulted anxiously the officers as to the exact 
whereabout of our opponents. I took a rifle from 
a wounded man and began to try shots with it my- 
self. It was very hot and the men were getting ex- 
hausted, though at this particiilar time we were not 
suffering heavily from bullets, the Spanish fire go- 
ing high. As we advanced, the cover became a 
little thicker and I lost touch of the main body under 
Wood ; so I halted and we fired industriously at the 
ranch buildings ahead of us, some five hundred 
yards off. Then we heard cheering on the right, 
and I supposed that this meant a charge on the part 
of Wood's men, so I sprang up and ordered the men 
to rush the buildings ahead of us. They came for- 
ward with a will. There was a moment's heavy 
firing from the Spaniards, which all went over our 
Vol. XI.— E 



98 The Rough Riders 

heads, and then it ceased entirely. When we ar- 
rived at the buildings, panting and out of breath, 
they contained nothing but heaps of empty car- 
tridge-shells and two dead Spaniards, shot through 
the head. 

The country all around us was thickly forested, 
so that it was very difficult to see any distance in 
any direction. The firing had now died out, but I 
was still entirely uncertain as to exactly what had 
happened. I did not know whether the enemy had 
been driven back or whether it was merely a lull 
in the fight, and we might be attacked again; nor 
did I know what had happened in any other part of 
the line, while as I occupied the extreme left, I was 
not sure whether or not my flank was in danger. 
At this moment one of our men who had dropped 
out, arrived with the information (fortunately 
false) that Wood was dead. Of course, this meant 
that the command devolved upon me, and I hastily 
set about taking charge of the regiment. I had 
been particularly struck by the coolness and cour- 
age shown by Sergeants Dame and Mcllhenny, and 
sent them out with small pickets to keep watch in 
front and to the left of the left wing. I sent other 
men to fill the canteens with water, and threw the 
rest out in a long line in a disused sunken road, 
which gave them cover, putting two or three wound- 
ed men, who had hitherto kept up with the fighting- 



Young's Fight at Lks Guasimas 



99 



line, and a dozen men who were suffering from 
heat exhaustion — for the fighting and running 
under that blazing sun through the thick dry jungle 
was heart-breaking— into the ranch buildings. 
Then I started over toward the main body, but to 
my delight encountered Wood himself, who told 
me the fight was over and the Spaniards had re- 
treated. He also informed me that other troops 
were just coming up. The first to appear was a 
squadron of the Ninth Cavalry, under Major 
Dimick, which had hurried up to get into the fight, 
and was greatly disappointed to find it over. They 
took post in front of our lines, so that our tired 
men were able to get a rest, Captain McBlain, of 
the Ninth, good-naturedly giving us some points 
as to the best way to station our outposts. Then 
General Chaffee, rather glum at not having been in 
the fight himself, rode up at the head of some of his 
infantry, and I marched my squadron back to where 
the rest of the regiment was going into camp, just 
where the two trails came together, and beyond — 
that is, on the Santiago side of — the original Span- 
ish lines. 

The Rough Riders had lost eight men killed and 
thirty-four wounded, aside from two or three who 
were merely scratched and whose wounds were not 
reported. The First Cavalry, white, lost seven men 
killed and eight wounded; the Tenth Cavalry, col- 



L 



or 



loo The Rough Riders 

ored, one man killed and ten wounded; so, out of 
964 men engaged on our side, 16 were killed and 52 
wounded. The Spaniards were under General 
Rubin, with, as second in command. Colonel Al- 
carez. They had two guns, and eleven companies 
of about a hundred men each : three belonging to the 
Porto Rico regiment, three to the San Fernandino, 
two to the Talavero, two being so-called mobilized 
companies from the mineral districts, and one a 
company of engineers; over twelve hundred men in 
all, together with two guns.* 

General Rubin reported that he had repulsed the 
American attack, and Lieutenant Tejeiro states in 
his book that General Rubin forced the Americans 
to retreat, and enumerates the attacking force as 
consisting of three regular regiments of infantry, 
the Second Massachusetts and the Seventy-first 

* See Lieutenant Miiller y Tejeiro, "Combates y Capitulacion 
de Santiago de Cuba," page 136. The Lieutenant speaks as if 
only one echelon, of seven companies and two guns, was en- 
gaged on the 24th. The official report says distinctly, "Gen- 
eral Rubin's column," which consisted of the companies de- 
tailed above. By turning to page 146, where Lieutenant Te- 
jeiro enumerates the strength of the various companies, it will 
be seen that they averaged over no men apiece; this probably 
does not include officers, and is probably an under-statement 
anyhow. On page 261 he makes the Spanish loss at Las 
Guasimas, which he calls Sevilla, 9 killed and 27 wounded. 
Very possibly he includes only the Spanish regulars ; two of 
the Spaniards we slew, over on the left, were iri brown, instead 
of the light blue of the regulars, and were doubtless guerillas. 



Young's Fight at Las Guasimas loi 

New York (not one of which fired a gun or were 
anywhere near the battle), in addition to the six- 
teen dismounted troops of cavalry. In other words, 
as the five infantry regiments each included twelve 
companies, he makes the attacking force consist of 
just five times the actual amount. As for the "re- 
pulse," our line never went back ten yards in any 
place, and the advance was practically steady; 
while an hour and a half after the fight began we 
were in complete possession of the entire Spanish 
position, and their troops were fleeing in masses 
down the road, our men being too exhausted to fol- 
low them. 

General Rubin also reports that he lost but seven 
men killed. This is certainly incorrect, for Cap- 
tain O'Neill and I went over the ground very 
carefully and counted eleven dead Spaniards, all of 
whom were actually buried by our burying squads. 
There were probably two or three men whom we 
missed, but I think that our official reports are in- 
correct in stating that forty-two dead Spaniards 
were found ; this being based upon reports in which 
I think some of the Spanish dead were counted two 
or three times. Indeed, I should doubt whether 
their loss was as heavy as ours, for they were under 
cover, while we advanced, often in the open, and 
their main lines fled long before we could get to 
close quarters. It is a very difficult country, and a 



I02 The Rough Riders 

force of good soldiers resolutely handled could 
have held the pass with ease against two or three 
times their number. As it was, with a force half 
of regulars and half of volunteers, we drove out a 
superior number of Spanish regular troops, strong- 
ly posted, without suffering a very heavy loss. 
Although the Spanish fire was very heavy, it does 
not seem to me it was very well directed; and 
though they fired with great spirit while we merely 
stood at a distance and fired at them, they did not 
show much resolution, and when we advanced, al- 
ways went back long before there was any chance 
of our coming into contact with them. Our men 
behaved very well indeed — white regulars, colored 
regulars, and Rough Riders alike. The newspaper 
press failed to do full justice to the white regulars, 
in my opinion, from the simple reason that every- 
body knew that they would fight, whereas there had 
been a good deal of question as to how the Rough 
Riders, who were volunteer troops, and the Tenth 
Cavalry, who were colored, would behave ; so there 
was a tendency to exalt our deeds at the expense of 
those of the First Regulars, whose courage and 
good conduct were taken for granted. It was a 
trying fight beyond what the losses show, for it is 
hard upon raw soldiers to be pitted against an un- 
seen foe, and to advance steadily when their com- 
rades are falling around them, and when they can 



Young's Fight at Las Guasimas 103 

only occasionally see a chance to retaliate. Wood's 
experience in fighting Apaches stood him in good 
stead. An entirely raw man at the head of the regi- 
ment, conducting, as Wood was, what was practi- 
cally an independent fight, \vould have been in a 
very trying position. The fight cleared the way tow- 
ard Santiago, and we experienced no further resist- 
ance. 

That afternoon we made camp and dined, sub- 
sisting chiefly on a load of beans which we found 
on one of the Spanish mules which had been shot. 
We also looked after the wounded. Dr. Church 
had himself gone out to the firing-line during the 
fight, and carried to the rear some of the worst 
wounded on his back or in his arms. Those who 
could walk had walked in to where the little field- 
hospital of the regiment was established on the trail. 
We found all our dead and all the badly wounded. 
Around one of the latter the big, hideous land-crabs 
had gathered in a grewsome ring, waiting for life 
to be extinct. One of our own men and most of 
the Spanish dead had been found by the vultures 
before we got to them; and their bodies were 
mangled, the eyes and wounds being torn. 

The Rough Rider who had been thus treated was 
in Bucky O'Neill's troop; and as we looked at the 
body, O'Neill turned to me and asked, "Colonel, 
isn't it Whitman who says of the vultures that 



I04 The Rough Riders 

'they pluck the eyes of princes and tear the flesh of 
kings'?" I answered that I could not place the 
quotation. Just a week afterward we were shield- 
ing his own body from the birds of prey. 

One of the men who fired first and who dis- 
played conspicuous gallantry was a Cherokee half- 
breed, who was hit seven times, and of course had to 
go back to the States. Before he joined us at Alon- 
tauk Point he had gone through a little private war 
of his own ; for on his return he found that a cow- 
boy had gone off with his sweetheart, and in the 
fight that ensued he shot his rival. Another man 
of L Troop who also showed marked gallantry was 
Elliot Cowdin. The men of the plains and moun- 
tains were trained by life-long habit to look on life 
and death with iron philosophy. As I passed by a 
couple of tall, lank, Oklahoma cow-punchers, I 
heard one say, "Well, some of the boys got it in the 
neck!" to which the other answered with the grim 
plains proverb of the South : "Many a good horse 
dies." 

Thomas Isbell, a half-breed Cherokee in the 
squad under Hamilton Fish, was among the first to 
shoot and be shot at. He was wounded no less 
than seven times. The first wound was received by 
him two minutes after he had fired his first shot, 
the bullet going through his neck. The second hit 
him in the left thumb. The third struck near his 



Young's Fight at Las Guasimas 105 

right hip, passing entirely through the body. The 
fourth bullet (which was apparently from a Rem- 
ington and not from a Mauser) went into his neck 
and lodged against the bone, being afterward cut 
out. The fifth bullet again hit his left hand. The 
sixth scraped his head and the seventh his neck. 
He did not receive all of the wounds at the same 
time, over half an hour elapsing between the first 
and the last. Up to receiving the last wound he had 
declined to leave the firing-line, but by that time he 
had lost so much blood that he had to be sent to the 
rear. The man's wiry toughness was as notable as 
his courage. 

We improvised litters, and carried the more sore- 
ly wounded back to Siboney that afternoon and the 
next morning; the others walked. One of the men 
who had been most severely wounded was Edward 
Marshall, the correspondent, and he showed as 
much heroism as any soldier in the whole army. 
He was shot through the spine, a terrible and very 
painful wound, which we supposed meant that he 
would surely die; but he made no complaint of any 
kind, and while he retained consciousness persisted 
in dictating the story of the fight. A very touching 
incident happened in the improvised open-air hos- 
pital after the fight, where the wounded were lying. 
They did not groan, and made no complaint, trying 
to help one another. One of them suddenly began 



io6 The Rough Riders 

to hum, "My Country 'Tis of Thee," and one by one 
the others joined in the chorus, which swelled out 
through the tropic woods, where the victors lay in 
camp beside their dead. I did not see any sign 
among the fighting men, whether wounded or im- 
wounded, of the very complicated emotions as- 
signed to their kind by some of the realistic modern 
novelists who have written about battles. At the 
front everyone behaved quite simply and took things 
as they came, in a matter-of-course way; but there 
was doubtless, as is always the case, a good deal of 
panic and confusion in the rear where the wounded, 
the stragglers, a few of the packers, and two or 
three newspaper correspondents were, and in conse- 
quence the first reports sent back to the coast were 
of a most alarming character, describing, with mi- 
nute inaccuracy, how we had run into an ambush, 
etc. The packers with the mules which carried the 
rapid-fire guns were among those who ran, and 
they let the mules go in the jungle; in consequence 
the guns were never even brought to the firing- 
line, and only Fred Herrig's skill as a trailer enabled 
us to recover them. By patient work he followed 
up the mules' tracks in the forest until he found the 
animals. 

Among the wounded who walked to the tem- 
porary hospital at Siboney was the trooper, Row- 
land, of whom I spoke before. There the doctors 



Young's Fight at Las Guasimas 107 

examined him, and decreed that his wound was 
so serious that he must go back to the States. This 
was enough for Rowland, who waited until night- 
fall and then escaped, slipping out of the window 
and making his way back to camp with his rifle 
and pack, though his wound must have 'made all 
movement very painful to him. After this, we felt 
that he was entitled to stay, and he never left us for 
a day, distinguishing himself again in the fight at 
San Juan. 

Next morning we burled seven dead Rough 
Riders in a grave on the summit of the trail. Chap- 
lain Brown reading the solemn burial service of the 
Episcopalians, while the men stood around with 
bared heads and joined in singing, "Rock of Ages." 
Vast numbers of vultures were wheeling round and 
round in great circles through the blue sky over- 
head. There could be no more honorable burial 
than that of these men in a common grave — Indian 
and cow-boy, miner, packer, and college athlete — 
the man of unknown ancestry from the lonely West- 
ern plains, and the man who carried on his watch 
the crests of the Stuyvesants and the Fishes, one 
in the way they had met death, just as during life 
they had been one in their daring and their loyalty. 

On the afternoon of the 25th we moved on a 
couple of miles, and camped in a marshy open spot 
close to a beautiful stream. Here we lay for sev- 



io8 The Rough Riders 

eral days. Captain Lee, the British attache, spent 
some time with us; we had begun to regard him 
as almost a member of the regiment. Count von 
Gotzen, the German attache, another good fellow, 
also visited us. General Young was struck down 
with the fever, and Wood took charge of the bri- 
gade. This left me in command of the regiment, 
of which I was very glad, for such experience as we 
had had is a quick teacher. By this time the men 
and I knew one another, and I felt able to make 
them do themselves justice in march or battle. They 
understood that I paid no heed to where they came 
from; no heed to their creed, politics, or social 
standing; that I would care for them to the utmost 
of my power, but that I demanded the highest per- 
formance of duty; while in retvtrn I had seen them 
tested, and knew I could depend absolutely on their 
courage, hardihood, obedience, and individual initia- 
tive. 

There was nothing like enough transportation 
with the army, whether in the way of wagons or 
mule-trains; exactly as there had been no sufficient 
number of landing-boats with the transports. The 
officers' baggage had come up, but none of us had 
much, and the shelter-tents proved only a partial 
protection against the terrific downpours of rain. 
These occurred almost every afternoon, and turned 
the camp into a tarn, and the trails into torrents 



Young's Fight at Las Guasimas 109 

and quagmires. We were not given quite the proper 
amount of food, and what we did get, like most of 
the clothing issued us, was fitter for the Klondyke 
than for Cuba. We got enough salt pork and hard- 
tack for the men, but not the full ration of coffee 
and sugar, and nothing else. I organized a couple 
of expeditions back to the seacoast, taking the 
strongest and best walkers, and also some of the 
officers' horses and a stray mule or two, and brought 
back beans and canned tomatoes. These I got 
partly by great exertions on my part, and partly by 
the aid of Colonel Weston of the Commissary De- 
partment, a particularly energetic man whose ser- 
vices were of great value. A silly regulation for- 
bade my purchasing canned vegetables, etc., except 
for the officers ; and I had no little difficulty in 
getting round this regulation, and purchasing (with 
my own money, of course) what I needed for the 
men. 

One of the men I took with me on one of these 
trips was Sherman Bell, the former Deputy Mar- 
shal of Cripple Creek, and Wells-Fargo Express 
rider. In coming home with his load, through a 
blinding storm, he slipped and opened the old rup- 
ture. The agony was very great, and one of his 
comrades took his load. He himself, sometimes 
walking, and sometimes crawling, got back to 
camp, where Dr. Church fixed him up with a spike 



no The Rough Riders 

bandage, but informed him that he would have to be 
sent back to the States when an ambulance came 
along. 

The ambulance did not come until the next 
day, which was the day before we marched to San 
Juan. It arrived after nightfall, and as soon as 
Bell heard it coming, he crawled out of the hos- 
pital tent into the jungle, where he lay all night; 
and the ambulance went off without him. The men 
shielded him just as school-boys would shield a 
companion, carrying his gun, belt, and bedding; 
while Bell kept out of sight until the colurnn start- 
ed, and then staggered along behind it. I found 
him the morning of the San Juan fight. He told 
me that he wanted to die fighting, if die he must, 
and I hadn't the heart to send him back. He did 
splendid service that day, and afterward in the 
trenches, and though the rupture opened twice 
again, and on each occasion he was within a hair's 
breadth of death, he escaped, and came back with 
us to the United States. 

The army was camped along the valley, ahead of 
and behind us, our outposts being established on 
either side. From the generals to the privates all 
were eager to march against Santiago. At day- 
break, when the tall palms began to show dimly 
through the rising mist, the scream of the cavalry 
trumpets tore the tropic dawn; and in the evening, 



Young's Fight at Las Guasimas 1 1 1 

as the bands of regiment after regiment played the 
"Star-Spangled Banner," all, ofificers and men alike, 
stood with heads uncovered, wherever they were, 
until the last strains of the anthem died away in 
the hot sunset air. 



IV 

THE CAVALRY AT SANTIAGO 

ON June 30th we received orders to hold our- 
selves in readiness to march against Santiago, 
and all the men were greatly overjoyed, for the in- 
action was trying. The one narrow road, a mere 
muddy track along which the army was encamped, 
was choked with the marching columns. As al- 
ways happened when we had to change camp, every- 
thing that the men could not carry, including, of 
course, the officers' baggage, was left behind. 

About noon the Rough Riders struck camp and 
drew up in column beside the road in the rear of 
the First Cavalry. Then we sat down and waited 
for hours before the order came to march, while 
regiment after regiment passed by, varied by bands 
of tatterdemalion Cuban insurgents, and by m.ule- 
trains with ammunition. Every man carried three 
days' provisions. We had succeeded in borrowing 
mules sufficient to carry along the dynamite gun 
and the automatic Colts. 

At last, toward mid-afternoon, the First and 
Tenth Cavalry, ahead of us, marched, and we fol- 
(112) 



The Cavalry at Santiago 113 

lowed. The First was under the command of Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Veile, the Tenth under Lieutenant- 
Colonel Baldwin. Every few minutes there would 
be a stoppage in front, and at the halt I would make 
the men sit or lie down beside the track, loosening 
their packs. The heat was intense as we passed 
through the still, close jungle, which formed a wall 
on either hand. Occasionally we came to gaps or 
open spaces, where some regiment was camped, 
and now and then one of these regiments, which ap- 
parently had been left out of its proper place, would 
file into the road, breaking up our line of march. 
As a result, we finally found ourselves following 
merely the trail of the regiment ahead of us, an 
infantry regiment being thrust into the interval. 
Once or twice we had to wade streams. Darkness 
came on, but we still continued to march. It was 
about eight o'clock when we turned to the left and 
climbed El Paso hill, on whose summit there was a 
ruined ranch and sugar factory, now, of course, de- 
serted. Here I found General Wood, who was ar- 
ranging for the camping of the brigade. Our own 
arrangements for the night were simple. I ex- 
tended each troop across the road into the jungle, 
and then the men threw down their belongings 
where they stood and slept on their arms. For- 
tunately, there was no rain. Wood and I curled up 
under our rain-coats on the saddle-blankets, while 



114 The Rough Riders 

his two aides, Captain A. L. Mills and Lieutenant 
W. E. Shipp, slept near us. We were up before 
dawn and getting breakfast. Mills and Shipp had 
nothing to eat, and they breakfasted with Wood 
and myself, as we had been able to get some hand- 
fuls of beans, and some coffee and sugar, as well as 
the ordinary bacon and hardtack. 

We did not talk much, for though we were in 
ignorance as to precisely what the day would bring 
forth, we knew that we should see fighting. We 
had slept soundly enough, although, of course, both 
Wood and I during the night had made a round of 
the sentries, he of the brigade, and I of the regi- 
ment; and I suppose that, excepting among hard- 
ened veterans, there is always a certain feeling of 
uneasy excitement the night before the battle. 

Mills and Shipp were both tall, fine-looking men, 
of tried courage, and thoroughly trained in every 
detail of their profession ; I remember being struck 
by the quiet, soldierly way they were going about 
their work early that morning. Before noon one 
was killed and the other dangerously wounded. 

General Wheeler was sick, but with his usual in- 
domitable pluck and entire indifference to his own 
personal comfort, he kept to the front. He was 
unable to retain command of the cavalry division, 
which accordingly devolved upon General Samuel 
Sumner, who commanded it until mid-afternoon, 



The Cavalry at Santiago 115 

when the bulk of the fighting was over. General 
Sumner's own brigade fell to Colonel Henry Car- 
roll. General Sumner led the advance with the cav- 
alry, and the battle was fought by him and by Gen- 
eral Kent, who commanded the infantry division, 
and whose foremost brigade was led by General 
Hawkins. 

As the sun rose the men fell in, and at the same 
time a battery of field-guns was brought up on the 
hill-crest just beyond, between us and toward San- 
tiago. It was a fine sight to see the great horses 
straining under the lash as they whirled the guns 
up the hill and into position. 

Our brigade was drawn up on the hither side of 
a kind of half basin, a big band of Cubans being off 
to the left. As yet we had received no orders, ex- 
cept that we were told that the main fighting was 
to be done by Lawton's infantry division, which 
was to take El Caney, several miles to our right, 
while we were simply to make a diversion. This 
diversion was to be made mainly with the artillery, 
and the battery which had taken position imme- 
diately in front of us was to begin when Lawton 
began. 

It was about six o'clock that the first report of the 
cannon from El Caney came booming to us across 
the miles of still jungle. It was a very lovely morn- 
ing, the sky of cloudless blue, while the level, shim- 



ii6 The Rough Riders 

mering rays from the just-risen sun brought into 
fine rehef the splendid palms which here and there 
towered above the lower growth. The lofty and 
beautiful mountains hemmed in the Santiago plain, 
making it an amphitheatre for the battle. 

Immediately our guns opened, and at the report 
great clouds of white smoke hung on the ridge 
crest. For a minute or two there was no response. 
Wood and I were sitting together, and Wood re- 
marked to me that he wished our brigade could 
be moved somewhere else, for we were directly in 
line of any return fire aimed by the Spaniards at 
the battery. Hardly had he spoken when there 
was a peculiar whistling, singing sound in the air, 
and immediately afterward the noise of something 
exploding over our heads. It was shrapnel from 
the Spanish batteries. We sprung to our feet and 
leaped on our horses. Immediately afterward a 
second shot came which burst directly above us; 
and then a third. From the second shell one of the 
shrapnel bullets dropped on my wrist, hardly break- 
ing the skin, but raising a bump about as big as a 
hickory-nut. The same shell wounded four of my 
regiment, one of them being Mason Mitchell, and 
two or three of the regulars were also hit, one los- 
ing his leg by a great fragment of shell. Another 
shell exploded right in the middle of the Cubans, 
killing and wounding a good many, while the re- 



The Cavalry at Santiago 117 

mainder scattered like guinea-hens. Wood's led 
horse was also shot through the lungs. I at once 
hustled my regiment over the crest of the hill 
into the thick underbrush, where I had no little 
difficulty in getting them together again into 
column. 

Meanwhile the firing continued for fifteen or 
twenty minutes, until it gradually died away. As 
the Spaniards used smokeless powder, their artil- 
lery had an enormous advantage over ours, and, 
moreover, we did not have the best type of modern 
guns, our fire being slow. 

As soon as the firing ceased, Wood formed his 
brigade, with my regiment in front, and gave me 
orders to follow behind the First Brigade, which 
was just moving of¥ the ground. In column of 
fours we marched down the trail toward the ford 
of the San Juan River. We passed two or three 
regiments of infantry, and were several times halted 
before we came to the ford. The First Brigade, 
which was under Colonel Carroll — Lieutenant- 
Colonel Hamilton commanding the Ninth Regi- 
ment, Major Wessels the Third, and Captain Kerr 
the Sixth — had already crossed and was marching 
to the right, parallel to, but a little distance from, 
the river. The Spaniards in the trenches and block- 
houses on the top of the hills in front were already 
firing at the brigade in desultory fashion. The 



ii8 The Rough Riders 

extreme advance of the Ninth Cavalry was under 
Lieutenants McNamee and Hartwick. They were 
joined by General Hawkins, with his staff, who was 
looking over the ground and deciding on the route 
he should take his infantry brigade. 

Our orders had been of the vaguest kind, being 
simply to march to the right and connect with Law- 
ton — with whom, of course, there was no chance of 
our connecting. No reconnoissance had been made, 
and the exact position and strength of the Spaniards 
were not known. A captive balloon was up in the 
air at this moment, but it was worse than useless. 
A previous proper reconnoissance and proper look- 
out from the hills would have given us exact in- 
formation. As it was. Generals Kent, Sumner, and 
Hawkins had to do their own reconnoissance, and 
they fought their troops so well that we won 
anyhow. 

I was now ordered to cross the ford, march half 
a mile or so to the right, and then halt and await 
further orders; and I promptly hurried my men 
across, for the fire was getting hot, and the captive 
balloon, to the horror of everybody, was coming 
down to the ford. Of course, it was a special tar- 
get for the enemy's fire. I got my men across 
before it reached the ford. There it partly col- 
lapsed and remained, causing severe loss of life, 
as it indicated the exact position where the Tenth 



The Cavalry at Santiago 119 

and the First Cavalry, and the infantry, were 
crossing. 

As I led my column slowly along, under the 
intense heat, through the high grass of the open 
jungle, the First Brigade was to our left, and the 
firing between it and the Spaniards on the hills 
grew steadily hotter and hotter. After a while I 
came to a sunken lane, and as by this time the 
First Brigade had stopped and was engaged in a 
stand-up fight, I halted my men and sent back word 
for orders. As we faced toward the Spanish hills 
my regiment was on the right with next to it and 
a little in advance the First Cavalry, and behind 
them the Tenth. In our front the Ninth held the 
right, the Sixth the centre, and the Third the left ; 
but in the jungle the lines were already overlap- 
ping in places. Kent's infantry were coming up, 
further to the left. 

Captain Mills was with me. The sunken lane, 
which had a wire fence on either side, led straight 
up toward, and between, the two hills in our front, 
the hill on the left, which contained heavy block- 
houses, being further away from us than the hill 
on our right, which we afterward grew to call 
Kettle Hill, and which was surmounted merely by 
some large ranch buildings or haciendas, with 
sunken brick-lined walls and cellars. I got the 
men as well-sheltered as I could. Many of them 



I20 The Rough Riders 

lay close under the bank of the lane, others slipped 
into the San Juan River and crouched under its 
hither bank, while the rest lay down behind the 
patches of bushy jungle in the tall grass. The 
heat was intense, and many of the men were al- 
ready showing signs of exhaustion. The sides of 
the hills in front were bare; but the country up 
to them was, for the most part, covered with such 
dense jungle that in charging through it no ac- 
curacy of formation could possibly be preserved. 
The fight was now on in good earnest, and the 
Spaniards on the hills were engaged in heavy volley 
firing. The Mauser bullets drove in sheets through 
the trees and the tall jungle grass, making a pecul- 
iar whirring or rustling sound ; some of the bullets 
seemed to pop in the air, so that we thought they 
were explosive; and, indeed, many of those which 
were coated with brass did explode, in the sense that 
the brass coat was ripped off, making a thin plate of 
hard metal with a jagged edge, which inflicted a 
ghastly wound. These bullets were shot from a 
45 -calibre rifle carrying smokeless powder, which 
was much used by the guerillas and irregular 
Spanish troops. The Mauser bullets themselves 
made a small, clean hole, with the result that the 
wound healed in a most astonishing manner. One 
or two of our men who were shot in the head had 
the skull blown open, but elsewhere the wounds 



The Cavalry at Santiago 121 

from the minute steel-coated bullet, with its very 
high velocity, w^ere certainly nothing like as seri- 
ous as those made by the old large-calibre, low- 
power rifle. If a man was shot through the heart, 
spine, or brain he was, of course, killed instantly; 
but very few of the wounded died — even under the 
appalling conditions which prevailed, owing to the 
lack of attendance and supplies in the field-hospitals 
with the army. 

While we were lying in reserve we were suffering 
nearly as much as afterward when we charged. T 
think that the bulk of the Spanish fire was prac- 
tically unaimed, or at least not aimed at any par- 
ticular man, and only occasionally at a particular 
body of men ; but they swept the whole field of bat- 
tle up to the edge of the river, and man after man 
in our ranks fell dead or wounded, although I had 
the troopers scattered out far apart, taking advan- 
tage of every scrap of cover. 

Devereux was dangerously shot while he lay with 
his men on the edge of the river. A young West 
Point cadet, Ernest Haskell, who had taken his holi- 
day with us as an acting second lieutenant, was shot 
through the stomach. He had shown great cool- 
ness and gallantry, which he displayed to an even 
more marked degree after being wounded, shaking 
my hand and saying, "All right. Colonel, I'm go- 
ing to get well. Don't bother about me, and don't 

Vol. XL— F 



122 The Rough Riders 

let any man come away with me." When I shook 
hands with him I thought he would surely die ; yet 
he recovered. 

The most serious loss that I and the regiment 
could have suffered befell just before we charged. 
Bucky O'Neill was strolling up and down in front 
of his men, smoking his cigarette, for he was in- 
veterately addicted to the habit. He had a theory 
that an officer ought never to take cover — a theory 
which was, of course, wrong, though in a volunteer 
organization the officers should certainly expose 
themselves very fully, simply for the effect on the 
men ; our regimental toast on the transport running, 
"The officers; may the war last until each is killed, 
wounded, or promoted." As O'Neill moved to and 
fro, his men begged him to lie down, and one of the 
sergeants said, "Captain, a bullet is sure to hit you." 
O'Neill took his cigarette out of his mouth, and 
blowing out a cloud of smoke laughed and said, 
"Sergeant, the Spanish bullet isn't made that will 
kill me." A little later he discussed for a moment 
with one of the regular officers the direction from 
which the Spanish fire was coming. As he turned 
on his heel a bullet struck him in the mouth and 
came out at the back of his head ; so that even before 
he fell his wild and gallant soul had gone out into 
the darkness. 

My orderly was a brave young Harvard boy, 



The Cavalry at Santiago 123 

Sanders, from the quaint old Massachusetts town of 
Salem. The work of an orderly on foot, under the 
blazing sun, through the hot and matted jungle, 
was very severe, and finally the heat overcame him. 
He dropped; nor did he ever recover fully, and 
later he died from fever. In his place I summoned 
a trooper whose name I did not know. Shortly 
afterward, while sitting beside the bank, I directed 
him to go back and ask whatever general he came 
across if I could not advance, as my men were 
being much cut up. He stood up to salute and then 
pitched forward across my knees, a bullet having 
gone through his throat, cutting the carotid. 

When O'Neill was shot, his troop, who were de- 
voted to him, were for the moment at a loss whom 
to follow. One of their number, Henry Bardshar, 
a huge Arizona miner, immediately attached himself 
to me as my orderly, and from that moment he was 
closer to me, not only in the fight, but throughout 
the rest of the campaign, than any other man, not 
even excepting the color-sergeant, Wright. 

Captain Mills was with me ; gallant Shipp had al- 
ready been killed. Mill's was an invaluable aide, 
absolutely cool, absolutely unmoved or flurried in 
any way. 

I sent messenger after messenger to try to find 
General Sumner or General Wood and get permis- 
sion to advance, and was just about making up my 



124 The Rough Riders 

mind that in the absence of orders I had better 
"march toward the guns," when Lieutenant-Colonel 
Dorst came riding up through the storm of bullets 
with the welcome command "to move forward and 
support the regulars in the assault on the hills in 
front." General Sumner had obtained authority to 
advance from Lieutenant Miley, who was represent- 
ing General Shafter at the front, and was in the thick 
of the fire. The General at once ordered the first 
brigade to advance on the hills, and the second to 
support it. He himself was riding his horse along 
the lines, superintending the fight. Later I over- 
heard a couple of my men talking together about 
him. What they said illustrates the value of a dis- 
play of courage among the officers in hardening 
their soldiers ; for their theme was how, as they were 
lying down under a fire which they could not return, 
and were in consequence feeling rather nervous, 
General Sumner suddenly appeared on horseback, 
sauntering by quite unmoved ; and, said one of the 
men, "That made us feel all right. If the General 
could stand it, we could." 

The instant I received the order I sprang on my 
horse and then my "crowded hour" began. The 
guerillas had been shooting at us from the edges 
of the jungle and from their perches in the leafy 
trees, and as they used smokeless powder, it was 
almost impossible to see them, though a few of my 



The Cavalry at Santiago 125 

men had from time to time responded. We had 
also suffered from the hill on our right front, which 
was held chiefly by guerillas, although there were 
also some Spanish regulars with them, for we found 
their dead. I formed my men in column of troops, 
each troop extended in open skirmishing order, the 
right resting on the wire fences which bordered the 
sunken lane. Captain Jenkins led the first squadron, 
his eyes literally dancing with joyous excitement. 

I started in the rear of the regiment, the position 
in which the colonel should theoretically stay. Cap- 
tain Mills and Captain McCormick were both with 
me as aides ; but I speedily had to send them off on 
special duty in getting the different bodies of men 
forward. I had intended to go into action on foot 
as at Las Guasimas, but the heat was so oppressive 
that I found I should be quite unable to run up 
and down the line and superintend matters unless 
I was mounted ; and, moreover, when on horseback, 
I could see the men better and they could see me 
better. 

A curious incident happened as I was getting the 
men started forward. Always when men have been 
lying down under cover for some time, and are re- 
quired to advance, there is a little hesitation, each 
looking to see whether the others are going for- 
ward. As I rode down the line, calling to the 
troopers to go forward, and rasping brief directions 



126 The Rough Riders 

to the captains and lieutenants, I came upon a man 
lying behind a little bush, and I ordered him to 
jump up. I do not think he understood that we 
were making a forward move, and he looked up at 
me for a moment with hesitation, and I again bade 
him rise, jeering him and saying: "Are you afraid 
to stand up when I am on horseback?" As I spoke, 
he suddenly fell forward on his face, a bullet having 
struck him and gone through him lengthwise. I 
suppose the bullet had been aimed at me; at any 
rate, I, who was on horseback in the open, was un- 
hurt, and the man lying flat on the ground in the 
cover beside me was killed. There were several 
pairs of brothers with us; of the two Nortons one 
was killed ; of the two McCurdys one was wounded. 

I soon found that I could get that line, behind 
which I personally was, faster forward than the one 
immediately in front of it, with the result that the 
two rearmost lines of the regiment began to crowd 
together; so I rode through them both, the better 
to move on the one in front. This happened with 
every line in succession, until I found myself at the 
head of the regiment. 

Both lieutenants of B Troop from Arizona had 
been exerting themselves greatly, and both were 
overcome by the heat; but Sergeants Campbell and 
Davidson took it forward in splendid shape. Some 
of the men from this troop and from the other Ari- 



The Cavalry at Santiago 127 

zona troop (Bucky O'Neill's) joined me as a kind 
of fighting tail. 

The Ninth Regiment was immediately in front 
of me, and the First on my left, and these went up 
Kettle Hill with my regiment. The Third, Sixth, 
and Tenth went partly up Kettle Hill (following 
the Rough Riders and the Ninth and First), and 
partly between that and the block-house hill, which 
the infantry were assailing. General Sumner in 
person gave the Tenth the order to charge the hills ; 
and it went forward at a rapid gait. The three 
regiments went forward more or less intermingled, 
advancing steadily and keeping up a heavy fire. Up 
Kettle Hill Sergeant George Berry, of the Tenth, 
bore not only his own regimental colors, but those 
of the Third, the color-sergeant of the Third hav- 
ing been shot down; he kept shouting: "Dress on 
the colors, boys, dress on the colors!" as he fol- 
lowed Captain Ayres, who was running in advance 
of his men, shouting and waving his hat. The 
Tenth Cavalry lost a greater proportion of its offi- 
cers than any other regiment in the battle — eleven 
out of twenty-two. 

By the time I had come to the head of the regi- 
ment we ran into the left wing of the Ninth Regu- 
lars, and some of the First Regulars, who were lying 
down; that is, the troopers were lying down, while 
the officers were walking to and fro. The officers 



128 The Rough Riders 

of the white and colored regiments ahke took the 
greatest pride in seeing that the men more than did 
their duty; and the mortahty among them was great. 
I spoke to the captain in command of the rear 
platoons, saying that I had been ordered to support 
the regulars in the attack upon the hills, and that in 
my judgment we could not take these hills by firing 
at them, and that we must rush them. He answered 
that his orders were to keep his men lying where 
they were, and that he could not charge without 
orders. I asked where the Colonel was, and as he 
was not in sight, said, "Then I am the ranking offi- 
cer here and I give the order to charge" — for I did 
not want to keep the men longer in the open suffer- 
ing under a fire which they could not effectively re- 
turn. Naturally the Captain hesitated to obey this 
order when no word had been received from his own 
Colonel. So I said, "Then let my men through, 
sir," and rode on through the lines, followed by the 
grinning Rough Riders, whose attention had been 
completely taken off the Spanish bullets, partly by 
my dialogue with the regulars, and partly by the 
language I had been using to themselves as I got 
the lines forward, for I had been joking with some 
and swearing at others, as the exigencies of the case 
seemed to demand. When we started to go through, 
however, it proved too much for the regulars, and 
they jumped up and came along, their officers and 



The Cavalry at Santiago 129 

troops mingling with mine, all being delighted at 
the chance. Wlien I got to where the head of the 
left wing of the Ninth was lying, through the court- 
esy of Lieutenant Hartwick, two of whose colored 
troopers threw down the fence, I was enabled to get 
back into the lane, at the same time waving my hat, 
and giving the order to charge the hill on our right 
front. Out of my sight, over on the right. Cap- 
tains McBlain and Taylor, of the Ninth, made up 
their minds independently to charge at just about 
this time; and at almost the same moment Colonels 
Carroll and Hamilton, who were off, I believe, to 
my left, where we could see neither them nor their 
men, gave the order to advance. But of all this I 
knew nothing at the time. The whole line, tired of 
waiting, and eager to close with the enemy, was 
straining to go forward ; and it seems that different 
parts slipped the leash at almost the same moment. 
The First Cavalry came up the hill just behind, and 
partly mixed with my regiment and the Ninth. As 
already said, portions of the Third, Sixth, and Tenth 
followed, while the rest of the members of these 
three regiments kept more in touch with the infantry 
on our left. 

By this time we were all in the spirit of the thing 
and greatly excited by the charge, the men cheer- 
ing and running forward between shots, while the 
delighted faces of the foremost officers, like Captain 



130 The Rough Riders 

C. J. Stevens, of the Ninth, as they ran at the head 
of their troops, will always stay in my mind. As 
soon as I was in the line I galloped forward a few 
yards until I saw that the men were well started, 
and then galloped back to help Goodrich, who was 
in command of his troop, get his men across the 
road so as to attack the hill from that side. Cap- 
tain Mills had already thrown three of the other 
troops of the regiment across this road for the same 
purpose. Wheeling around, I then again galloped 
toward the hill, passing the shouting, cheering, fir- 
ing men, and went up the lane, splashing through 
a small stream; when I got abreast of the ranch 
buildings on the top of Kettle Hill, I turned and 
went up the slope. Being on horseback I was, of 
course, able to get ahead of the men on foot, except- 
ing my orderly, Henry Bardshar, who had run 
ahead very fast in order to get better shots at the 
Spaniards, who were now running out of the ranch 
buildings. Sergeant Campbell and a number of the 
Arizona men, and Dudley Dean, among others, were 
very close behind. Stevens, with his platoon of the 
Ninth, was abreast of us; so were McNamee and 
Hartwick. Some forty yards from the top I ran 
into a wire fence and jumped off Little Texas, turn- 
ing him loose. He had been scraped by a couple of 
bullets, one of which nicked my elbow, and I never 
expected to see him again. As I ran up to the hill, 



The Cavalry at Santiago 131 

Bardshar stopped to shoot, and two Spaniards fell 
as he emptied his magazine. These were the only 
Spaniards I actually saw fall to aimed shots by any 
one of my men, with the exception of two guerillas 
in trees. 

Almost immediately afterward the hill was cov- 
ered by the troops, both Rough Riders and the col- 
ored troopers of the Ninth, and some men of the 
First. There was the usual confusion, and after- 
ward there was much discussion as to exactly who 
had been on the hill first. The first guidons planted 
there were those of the three New Mexican troops, 
G, E, and F, of my regiment, under their Captains, 
Llewellen, Luna, and Muller, but on the extreme 
riglit of the hill, at the opposite end from where we 
struck it. Captains Taylor and McBlain and their 
men of the Ninth were first up. Each of the five 
captains was firm in the belief that his troop was 
first up. As for the individual men, each of whom 
honestly thought he was first on the summit, their 
name was legion. One Spaniard was captured in 
the buildings, another was shot as he tried to hide 
himself, and a few others were killed as they ran. 

Among the many deeds of conspicuous gallantry 
here performed, two, both to the credit of the First 
Cavalry, may be mentioned as examples of the others, 
not as exceptions. Sergeant Charles Karsten, while 
close beside Captain Tutherly, the squadron com- 



132 The Rough Riders 

mander, was hit by a shrapnel bullet. He continued 
on the line, firing until his arm grew numb ; and he 
then refused to go to the rear, and devoted himself 
to taking care of the wounded, utterly unmoved by 
the heavy fire. Trooper Hugo Brittain, when 
wounded, brought the regimental standard forward, 
waving it to and fro, to cheer the men. 
- No sooner were we on the crest than the Span- 
iards from the line of hills in our front, where they 
were strongly intrenched, opened a very heavy fire 
upon us with their rifles. They also opened upon us 
with one or two pieces of artillery, using time fuses 
which burned very accurately, the shells exploding 
right over our heads. 

On the top of the hill was a huge iron kettle, or 
something of the kind, probably used for sugar re- 
fining. Several of our men took shelter behind this. 
We had a splendid view of the charge on the San 
Juan block-house to our left, where the infantry of 
Kent, led by Hawkins, were climbing the hill. 
Obviously the proper thing to do was to help them, 
and I got the men together and started them volley- 
firing against the Spaniards in the San Juan block- 
house and in the trenches around it. We could only 
see their heads ; of course this was all we ever could 
see when we were firing at them in their trenches. 
Stevens was directing not only his own colored 
troopers, but a number of Rough Riders; for in a 



The Cavalry at Santiago 133 

melee good soldiers are always prompt to recognize 
a good officer, and are eager to follow him. 

We kept up a brisk fire for some five or ten min- 
utes; meanwhile we were much cut up ourselves. 
Gallant Colonel Hamilton, than whom there was 
never a braver man, was killed, and equally gallant 
Colonel Carroll wounded. When near the summit 
Captain Mills had been shot through the head, the 
bullet destroying the sight of one eye permanently 
and of the other temporarily. He would not go 
back or let any man assist him, sitting down where 
he was and waiting until one of the men brought 
him word that the hill was stormed. Colonel Veile 
planted the standard of the First Cavalry on the hill, 
and General Sumner rode up. He was fighting his 
division in great form, and was always him.self in 
the thick of the fire. As the men were much ex- 
cited by the firing, they seemed to pay very little 
heed to their own losses. 

Suddenly, above the cracking of the carbines, rose 
a peculiar drumming sound, and some of the men 
cried, "The Spanish machine-guns!" Listening, I 
made out that it came from the flat ground to the 
left, and jumped to my feet, smiting my hand on 
my thigh, and shouting aloud with exultation, "It's 
the Catlings, men, our Catlings!" Lieutenant 
Parker was bringing his four Catlings into action, 
and shoving them nearer and nearer the front. Now 



134 The Rough Riders 

and then the drumming ceased for a moment ; then 
it would resound again, always closer to San Juan 
hill, which Parker, like ourselves, was hammering 
to assist the infantry attack. Our men cheered lus- 
tily. We saw much of Parker after that, and there 
was never a more welcome sound than his Gatlings 
as they opened. It was the only sound which I ever 
heard my men cheer in battle. 

The infantry got nearer and nearer the crest of 
the hill. At last we could see the Spaniards run- 
ning from the rifle-pits as the Americans came on 
in their final rush. Then I stopped my men for 
fear they should injure their comrades, and called 
to them to charge the next line of trenches, on the 
hills in our front, from which we had been under- 
going a good deal of punishment. Thinking that 
the men would all come, I jumped over the wire 
fence in front of us and started at the double; but, 
as a matter of fact, the troopers were so excited, 
what with shooting and being shot, and shouting 
and cheering, that they did not hear, or did not heed 
me; and after running about a hundred yards I 
found I had only five men along with me. Bullets 
were ripping the grass all around us, and one of the 
men, Clay Green, was mortally wounded ; another, 
Winslow Clark, a Harvard man, was shot first in 
the leg and then through the body. He made not 
the slightest murmur, only asking me to put his 



The Cavalry at Santiago 135 

water canteen where he could get at it, which I did ; 
he ultimately recovered. There was no use going" 
on with the remaining three men, and I bade them 
stay where they were while I went back and brought 
up the rest of the brigade. This was a decidedly 
cool request, for there was really no possible point 
in letting them stay there while I went back ; but at 
the moment it seemed perfectly natural to me, and 
apparently so to them, for they cheerfully nodded, 
and sat do^^^l in the grass, firing back at the line of 
trenches from which the Spaniards were shooting 
at them. Meanwhile, I ran back, jumped over the 
wire fence, and went over the crest of the hill, filled 
with anger against the troopers, and especially those 
of my own regiment, for not having accompanied 
me. They, of course, were quite innocent of wrong- 
doing; and even while I taunted them bitterly for 
not having followed me, it was all I could do not 
to smile at the look of injury and surprise that came 
over their faces, while they cried out, "We didn't 
hear you, we didn't see you go, Colonel; lead on 
now, we'll sure follow you." I wanted the other 
regiments to come, too, so I ran down to where 
General Sumner was and asked him if I n::^ht make 
the charge ; and he told me to go and that he would 
see that the men followed. By this time everybody 
had his attention attracted, and when I leaped over 
the fence again, with Major Jenkins beside me, the 



136 The Rough Riders 

men of the various regiments which were aheady on 
the hill came with a rush, and we started across the 
wide valley which lay between us and the Spanish 
intrenchments. Captain Dimmick, now in com- 
mand of the Ninth, was bringing it forward; Cap- 
tain McBlain had a number of Rough Riders mixed 
in with his troop, and led them all together; Cap- 
tain Taylor had been severely wounded. The long- 
legged men like Greenway, Goodrich, sharpshooter 
Proffit, and others, outstripped the rest of us, as we 
had a considerable distance to go. Long before we 
got near them the Spaniards ran, save a few here 
and there, who either surrendered or were shot 
down. When we reached the trenches we found 
them filled with dead bodies in the light blue and 
white uniform of the Spanish regular army. There 
were very few wounded. Most of the fallen had 
little holes in their heads from which their brains 
were oozing; for they were covered from the neck 
down by the trenches. 

It was at this place that Major Wessels, of the 
Third Cavalry, was shot in the back of the head. 
It was a severe wound, but after having it bound up 
he again -rr-me to the front in command of his regi- 
ment. Among the men who were foremost was 
Lieutenant Milton F. Davis, of the First Cavalry. 
He had been joined by three men of the Seventy- 
first New York, who ran up, and, saluting, said, 



The Cavalry at Santiago 137 

"Lieutenant, we want to go with you, our officers 
won't lead us." One of the brave fellows was soon 
afterward shot in the face. Lieutenant Davis's first 
sergeant, Clarence Gould, killed a Spanish soldier 
with his revolver, just as the Spaniard was aiming 
at one of my Rough Riders. At about the same time 
I also shot one. I was with Henry Bardshar, run- 
ning up at the double, and two Spaniards leaped 
from the trenches and fired at us, not ten yards 
away. As they turned to run I closed in and fired 
twice, missing the first and killing the second. My 
revolver was from the sunken battleship Maine, and 
had been given me by my brother-in-law. Captain 
W. S. Cowles, of the Navy. At the time I did not 
know of Gould's exploit, and supposed my feat to 
be unique ; and although Gould had killed his Span- 
iard in the trenches, not very far from me, I never 
learned of it until weeks after. It is astonishing 
what a limited area of vision and experience one has 
in the hurly-burly of a battle. 

There was very great confusion at this time, the 
different regiments being completely intermingled 
— white regulars, colored regulars, and Rough Rid- 
ers. General Sumner had kept a considerable force 
in reserve on Kettle Hill, under Major Jackson, of 
the Third Cavalry. We were still under a heavy 
fire, and I got together a mixed lot of men and 
pushed on from the trenches and ranch-houses which 



138 The Rough Riders 

we had just taken, driving the Spaniards through a 
hne of palm-trees, and over the crest of a chain of 
hills. When we reached these crests we found our- 
selves overlooking Santiago. Some of the men, in- 
cluding Jenkins, Greenway, and Goodrich, pushed 
on almost by themselves far ahead. Lieutenant 
Hugh Berkely, of the First, with a sergeant and 
two troopers, reached the extreme front. He was, 
at the time, ahead of every one; the sergeant was 
killed and one trooper wounded; but the lieutenant 
and the remaining trooper stuck to their post for the 
rest of the afternoon until our line was gradually 
extended to include them. 

While I was reforming the troops on the chain 
of hills, one of General Sumner's aides, Captain 
Robert Howze — as dashing and gallant an officer 
as there was in the whole gallant cavalry division, 
by the way — came up with orders to me to halt 
where I was, not advancing further, but to hold 
the hill at all hazards. Howze had his horse, and 
I had some difficulty in making him take proper 
shelter; he stayed with us for quite a time, unable 
to make up his mind to leave the extreme front, 
and meanwhile jumping at the chance to render any 
service, of risk or otherwise, which the moment de- 
veloped. 

I now had under me all the fragments of the six 
cavalry regiments which were at the extreme front, 



The Cavalry at Santiago 139 

being the highest officer left there, and I was in 
immediate command of them for the remainder of 
the afternoon and that night. The Ninth was over 
to the right, and the Thirteenth Infantry afterward 
came up beside it. The rest of Kent's infantry was 
to our left. Of the Tenth, Lieutenants Anderson, 
Muller, and Fleming reported to me ; Anderson was 
slightly wounded, but he paid no heed to this. All 
three, like every other officer, had troopers of vari- 
ous regiments under them ; such mixing was inevita- 
ble in making repeated charges through thick jun- 
gle; it was essentially a troop commanders', indeed, 
almost a squad leaders', fight. The Spaniards who 
had been holding the trenches and the line of hills, 
had fallen back upon their supports and we were 
under a very heavy fire both from rifles and great 
guns. At the point where we were, the grass-cov- 
ered hill-crest was gently rounded, giving poor 
cover, and I made my men lie down on the hither 
slope. 

On the extreme left Captain Beck, of the Tenth, 
with his own troop, and small bodies of the men 
of other regiments, was exercising a practically in- 
dependent command, driving back the Spaniards 
whenever they showed any symptoms of advancing. 
He had received his orders to hold the line at all 
hazards from Lieutenant Andrews, one of General 
Sumner's aides, just as I had received mine from 



I40 The Rough Riders 

Captain Howze. Finally, he was relieved by some 
infantry, and then rejoined the rest of the Tenth, 
which was engaged heavily until dark, Major Wint 
being among the severely wounded. Lieutenant 
W. N. Smith was killed. Captain Bigelow had 
been wounded three times. 

Our artillery made one or two efforts to come into 
action on the firing-line of the infantry, but the black 
powder rendered each attempt fruitless. The Spanish 
guns used smokeless powder, so that it was difficult 
to place them. In this respect they were on a par 
with their own infantry and with our regular infan- 
try and dismounted cavalry ; but our only two volun- 
teer infantry regiments, the Second Massachusetts 
and the Seventy-first New York, and our artillery, 
all had black powder. This rendered the two volun- 
teer regiments, which were armed with the anti- 
quated Springfield, almost useless in the battle, and 
did practically the same thing for the artillery where- 
ever it was formed within rifle range. When one 
of the guns was discharged a thick cloud of smoke 
shot out and hung over the place, making an ideal 
target, and in a half minute every Spanish gun and 
rifle within range was directed at the particular spot 
thus indicated ; the consequence was that after a 
more or less lengthy stand the gun was silenced or 
driven off. We got no appreciable help from our 
guns on July ist. Our men were quick to realize 



The Cavalry at Santiago 141 

the defects of our artillery, but they were entirely 
philosophic about it, not showing the least concern 
at its failure. On the contrary, whenever they heard 
our artillery open they would grin as they looked at 
one another and remark, "There go the guns again ; 
wonder how soon they'll be shut up," and shut up 
they were sure to be. The light battery of Hotch- 
kiss one-pounders, under Lieutenant J. B. Hughes, 
of the Tenth Cavalry, was handled with conspicu- 
ous gallantry. 

On the hill-slope immediately around me I had a 
mixed force composed of members of most of the 
cavalry regiments, and a few infantrymen. There 
were about fifty of my Rough Riders with Lieuten- 
ants Goodrich and Carr. Among the rest were per- 
haps a score of colored infantrymen, but, as it hap- 
pened, at this particular point without any of their 
officers. No troops could have behaved better than 
the colored soldiers had behaved so far ; but they are, 
of course, peculiarly dependent upon their white 
officers. Occasionally they produce non-commis- 
sioned officers who can take the initiative and accept 
responsibility precisely like the best class of whites ; 
but this can not be expected normally, nor is it fair 
to expect it. With the colored troops there should 
always be some of their own officers ; whereas, with 
the white regulars, as with my own Rough Riders, 
experience showed that the non-commissioned offi- 



142 The Rough Riders 

cers could usually carry on the fight by themselves 
if they were once started, no matter whether their 
officers were killed or not. 

At this particular time it was trying for the men, 
as they were lying flat on their faces, very rarely re- 
sponding to the bullets, shells, and shrapnel which 
swept over the hill-top, and which occasionally killed 
or wounded one of their number. Major Albert G. 
Forse, of the First Cavalry, a noted Indian fighter, 
was killed about this time. One of my best men. 
Sergeant Greenly, of Arizona, who was lying be- 
side me, suddenly said, "Beg pardon, Colonel; but 
I've been hit in the leg." I asked, "Badly?" He 
said, "Yes, Colonel ; quite badly." After one of his 
comrades had helped him fix up his leg with a first- 
aid-to-the-injured bandage, he limped off to the 
rear. 

None of the white regulars or Rough Riders 
showed the slightest sign of weakening; but under 
the strain the colored infantrymen (who had none 
of their officers) began to get a little uneasy and to 
drift to the rear, either helping wounded men, or 
saying that they wished to find their own regiments. 
This I could not allow, as it was depleting my line, 
so I jumped up, and walking a few yards to the 
rear, drew my revolver, halted the retreating sol- 
diers, and called out to them that I appreciated the 
gallantry with which they had fought and would 



The Cavalry at Santiago 143 

be sorry to hurt them, but that I should shoot the 
first man who, on any pretence whatever, went to 
the rear. My own men had all sat up and were 
watching my movements with the utmost interest; 
so was Captain Howze. I ended my statement to 
the colored soldiers by saying: "Now, I shall be very 
sorry to hurt you, and you don't know whether or 
not I will keep my word, but my men can tell you 
that I always do;" whereupon my cow-punchers, 
hunters, and miners solemnly nodded their heads 
and commented in chorus, exactly as if in a comic 
opera, "He always does ; he always does !" 

This was the end of the trouble, for the "smoked 
Yankees" — as the Spaniards called the colored sol- 
diers — flashed their white teeth at one another, as 
they broke into broad grins, and I had no more 
trouble with them, they seeming to accept me as 
one of their own officers. The colored cavalrymen 
had already so accepted me; in return, the Rough 
Riders, although for the most part Southwesterners, 
who have a strong color prejudice, grew to accept 
them with hearty goodwill as comrades, and were 
entirely willing, in their own phrase, "to drink out 
of the same canteen." Where all the regular offi- 
cers did so well, it is hard to draw any distinction; 
but in the cavalry division a peculiar meed of praise 
should be given to the officers of the Ninth and 
Tenth for their work, and under their leadership the 



144 The Rough Riders 

colored troops did as well as any soldiers could pos- 
sibly do. 

In the course of the afternoon the Spaniards in 
our front made the only offensive movement which 
I saw them make during the entire campaign; for 
what were ordinarily called "attacks" upon our lines 
consisted merely of heavy firing from their trenches 
and from their skirmishers. In this case they did 
actually begin to make a forward movement, their 
cavalry coming up as well as the marines and reserve 
infantry,* while their skirmishers, who were always 
bold, redoubled their activity. It could not be called 
a charge, and not only was it not pushed home, but 
it was stopped almost as soon as it began, our men 
immediately running forward to the crest of the hill 
with shouts of delight at seeing their enemies at last 
come into the open. A few seconds' firing stopped 
their advance and drove them into the cover of the 
trenches. 

They kept up a very heavy fire for some time 
longer, and our men again lay down, only replying 
occasionally. Suddenly we heard on our right the 
peculiar drumming sound which had been so wel- 
come in the morning, when the infantry were assail- 
ing the San Juan block-house. The Catlings were 
up again ! I started over to inquire, and found that 

* Lieutenant Tejeiro, p. 154, speaks of this attempt to retake 
San Juan and its failure. 



The Cavalry at Santiago 145 

Lieutenant Parker, not content with using his guns 
in support of the attacking forces, had thrust them 
forward to the extreme front of the fighting Hne, 
where he was handling them with great effect. 
From this time on, throughout the fighting, Parker's 
GatHngs were on the right of my regiment, and his 
men and mine fraternized in every way. He kept 
his pieces at the extreme front, using them on every 
occasion until the last Spanish shot was fired. In- 
deed, the dash and efBciency with which the Catlings 
■were handled by Parker was one of the most strik- 
ing features of the campaign ; he showed that a first- 
rate officer could use machine-guns, on wheels, in 
battle and skirmish, in attacking and defending 
trenches, alongside of the best troops, and to their 
great advantage. 

As night came on, the firing gradually died away. 
Before this happened, however. Captains Morton 
and Boughton, of the Third Cavalry, came over to 
tell me that a rumor had reached them to the effect 
that there had been some talk of retiring and that 
they wished to protest in the strongest manner. I 
had been watching them both, as they handled their 
troops with the cool confidenceof the veteran regu- 
lar officer, and had been congratulating myself that 
they were off toward the right flank, for as long as 
they were there, I knew I was perfectly safe in that 
direction. I had heard no rumor about retiring, 
Vol. XL— G 



146 The Rough Riders 

and I cordially agreed with them that it would be 
far worse than a blunder to abandon our position. 

To attack the Spaniards by rushing across open 
ground, or through wire entanglements and low, al- 
most impassable jungle, without the help of artil- 
lery, and to force unbroken infantry, fighting behind 
earthworks and armed with the best repeating weap- 
ons, supported by cannon, was one thing; to repel 
such an attack ourselves, or to fight our foes on 
anything like even terms in the open, was quite an- 
other thing. No possible number of Spaniards com- 
ing at us from in front could have driven us from 
our position, and there was not a man on the crest 
who did not eagerly and devoutly hope that our 
opponents would make the attempt, for it would 
surely have been followed, not merely by a repulse, 
but by our immediately taking the city. There was 
not an officer or a man on the firing-line, so far as 
I saw them, who did not feel this way. 

As night fell, some of my men went back to the 
buildings in our rear and foraged through them, for 
we had now been fourteen hours charging and fight- 
ing without food. They came across what was evi- 
dently the Spanish officers' mess, where their din- 
ner was still cooking, and they brought it to the 
front in high glee. It was evident that the Spanish 
officers were living well, however the Spanish rank 
and file were faring. There were three big iron 



SAN JUAN HILL 

Verestchagin's commemoration of the battle of San Juan, par- 
ticipated in by the ''''Rough Riders," with Theodore 
Roosevelt as their Lieutenant-Colonel 




SOPYRJSHT 1902 



The Cavalry at Santiago 147 

pots, one filled with beef-stew, one with boiled rice, 
and one with boiled peas ; there was a big demijohn 
of rum (all along the trenches which the Spaniards 
held were empty wine and liquor bottles) ; there 
were a number of loaves of rice-bread; and there 
were even some sm.all cans of preserves and a few 
salt fish. Of course, among so many men, the food, 
which was equally divided, did not give very much 
to each, but it freshened us all. 

Soon after dark, General Wheeler, who in the 
afternoon had resumed command of the cavalry di- 
vision, came to the front. A very few words with 
General Wheeler reassured us about retiring. He 
had been through too much heavy firing in the Civil 
War to regard the present fight as very serious, and 
he told us not to be under any apprehension, for he 
had sent w^ord that there was no need whatever of 
retiring, and was sure we would stay where we were 
until the chance came to advance. He was second 
in command ; and to him more than to any other one 
man was due the prompt abandonment of the pro- 
posal to fall back — a proposal which, if adopted, 
would have meant shame and disaster. 

Shortly afterward General Wheeler sent us orders 
to intrench. The men of the different regiments 
were now getting in place again and sifting them- 
selves out. All of our troops who had been kept at 
Kettle Hill came forward and rejoined us after 



148 The Rough Riders 

nightfall. During the afternoon Greenway, appar- 
ently not having enough to do in the fighting, had 
taken advantage of a lull to explore the buildings 
himself, and had found a number of Spanish in- 
trenching tools, picks, and shovels; and these we 
used in digging trenches along our line. The men 
were very tired indeed, but they went cheerfully 
to work, all the officers doing their part. 

Crockett, the ex-Revenue officer from Georgia, 
was a slight man, not physically very strong. He 
came to me and told me he didn't think he would 
be much use in digging, but that he had. found a lot 
of Spanish coffee and would spend his time making 
coffee for the men, if I approved. I did approve 
very heartily, and Crockett officiated as cook for the 
next three or four hours until the trench was dug, 
his coffee being much appreciated by all of us. 

So many acts of gallantry were performed during 
the day that it is quite impossible to notice them 
all, and it seems unjust to single out any ; yet I shall 
mention a few, which it must always be remembered 
are to stand, not as exceptions, but as instances of 
what very many men did. It happened that I saw 
these myself. There were innumerable others, which 
either were not seen at all, or were seen only by 
officers who happened not to mention them ; and, of 
course, I know chiefly those that happened in my 
own regiment. 



The Cavalry at Santiago 149 

Captain Llewellen was a large, heavy man, who 
had a grown-up son in the ranks. On the march he 
had frequently carried the load of some man who 
weakened, and he was not feeling well on the morn- 
ing of the fight. Nevertheless, he kept at the head 
of his troop all day. In the charging and rushing, 
he not only became very much exhausted, but finally 
fell, wrenching himself terribly, and though he re- 
mained with us all night, he was so sick by morning 
that we had to take him behind the hill into an im- 
provised hospital. Lieutenant Day, after handling 
his troop with equal gallantry and efficiency, was 
shot, on the summit of Kettle Hill. He was hit in 
the arm and was forced to go to the rear, but he 
would not return to the States, and rejoined us at the 
front long before his wound was healed. Lieutenant 
Leahy was also wounded, not far from him. Thir- 
teen of the men were wounded and yet kept on 
fighting until the end of the day, and in some cases 
never went to the rear at all, even to have their 
wounds dressed. They were Corporals Waller and 
Fortescue and Trooper McKinley of Troop E ; Cor- 
poral Roades of Troop D : Troopers Albertson, Win- 
ter, McGregor, and Ray Clark of Troop F; Troop- 
ers Bugbee, Jackson, and Waller of Troop A; 
Trumpeter McDonald of Troop L ; Sergeant Hughes 
of Troop B ; and Trooper Gievers of Troop G. One 
of the Wallers was a cow-puncher from New Mexi- 



150 The Rough Riders 

CO, the other the champion Yale high- jumper. The 
first was shot through the left arm so as to paralyze 
the fingers, but he continued in battle, pointing his 
rifle over the wounded arm as though it had been a 
rest. The other Waller, and Bugbee, were hit in 
the head, the bullets merely inflicting scalp wounds. 
Neither of them paid any heed to the wounds ex- 
cept that after nightfall each had his head done up 
in a bandage, Fortescue I was at times using as an 
extra orderly. I noticed he limped, but supposed 
that his foot was skinned. It proved, however, that 
he had been struck in the foot, though not very seri- 
ously, by a bullet, and I never knew what was the 
matter until the next day I saw him making wry 
faces as he drew off his bloody boot, which was stuck 
fast to the foot. Trooper Rowland again distin- 
guished himself by his fearlessness. 

For gallantry on the field of action Sergeants 
Dame, Ferguson, Tiffany, Greenwald, and, later on, 
Mcllhenny, were promoted to second lieutenancies, 
as Sergeant Hayes had already been. Lieutenant 
Carr, who commanded his troop, and behaved with 
great gallantry throughout the day, was shot and 
severely wounded at nightfall. He was the son of 
a Confederate officer; his was the fifth generation 
which, from father to son, had fought in every war 
of the United States. Among the men whom I no- 
ticed as leading in the charges and always being 



The Cavalry at Santiago 151 

nearest the enemy, were the Pawnee, Pollock, Simp- 
son of Texas, and Dudley Dean. Jenkins was made 
major, Woodbury Kane, Day, and Frantz, captains, 
and Greenway and Goodrich first lieutenants, for 
gallantry in action, and for the efficiency with which 
the first had handled his squadron, and the other five 
their troops — for each of them, owing to some ac- 
cident to his superior, found himself in command of 
his troop. 

Dr. Church had worked quite as hard as any man 
at the front in caring for the wounded ; as had Chap- 
lain Brown. Lieutenant Keyes, who acted as ad- 
jutant, did so well that he was given the position 
permanently. Lieutenant Coleman similarly won 
the position of quartermaster. 

We finished digging the trench soon after mid- 
night, and then the wornout men lay down in rows 
on their rifles and dropped heavily to sleep. About 
one in ten of them had blankets taken from the Span- 
iards. Henry Bardshar, my orderly, had procured 
one for me. He, Goodrich, and I slept together. 
If the men without blankets had not been so tired 
that they fell asleep anyhow, they would have been 
very cold, for, of course, we were all drenched with 
sweat, and above the waist had on nothing but our 
flannel shirts, while the night was cool, with a heavy 
dew. 

Before any one had time to wake from the cold, 



15^ The Rough Riders 

however, we were all awakened by the Spaniards, 
whose skirmishers suddenly opened fire on us. 
Of course, we could not tell whether or not this 
was the forerunner of a heavy attack, for our Cos- 
sack posts were responding briskly. It was about 
three o'clock in the morning, at which time men's 
courage is said to be at the lowest ebb ; but the cav- 
alry division was certainly free from any weakness 
in that direction. At the alarm everybody jumped 
to his feet, and the stiff, shivering, haggard men, 
their eyes only half-opened, all clutched their rifles 
and ran forward to the trench on the crest of the 
hill. 

The sputtering shots died away and we went to 
sleep again. But in another hour dawn broke and 
the Spaniards opened fire in good earnest. There 
was a little tree only a few feet away, under which 
I made my headquarters, and while I was lying 
there, with Goodrich and Keyes, a shrapnel burst 
among us, not hurting us in the least, but with the 
sweep of its bullets killing or wounding five men in 
our rear, one of whom was a singularly gallant 
young Harvard fellow, Stanley Hollister. An 
equally gallant young fellow from Yale, Theodore 
Miller, had already been mortally wounded. Hol- 
lister also died. 

The Second Brigade lost more heavily than the 
First; but neither its brigade commander nor any 



The Cavalry at Santiago 153 

of its regimental commanders was touched, while 
the commander of the First Brigade and two of its 
three regimental commanders had been killed or 
wounded. 

In this fight our regiment had numbered 490 men, 
as, in addition to the killed and wounded of the first 
/fight, some had had to go to the hospital for sick- 
ness and some had been left behind with the bag- 
gage, or were detailed on other duty. Eighty-nine 
were killed and wounded : the heaviest loss suffered 
by any regiment in the cavalry division. The Span- 
iards made a stifif fight, standing firm until we 
charged home. They fought much more stubbornly 
than at Las Guasimas. We ought to have expected 
this, for they have always done well in holding in- 
trenchments. On this day they showed themselves 
to be brave foes, worthy of honor for their gal- 
lantry. 

In the attack on the San Juan hills our forces num- 
bered about 6,600.* There were about 4,500 Span- 

* According to the official reports, 5,104 officers and men of 
Kent's infantry, and 2,649 of the cavalry had been landed. My 
regiment is put down as 542 strong, instead of the real figure, 
490, the difference being due to men who were in hospital and 
on guard at the seashore, etc. In other words, the total rep- 
resents the total landed; the details, etc., are included. Gen- 
eral Wheeler, in his report of July 7th, puts these details as 
about fifteen per cent of the whole of the force which was on 
the transports ; about eighty-five per cent got forward and was 
in the fight. 



154 The Rough Riders 

iards against us.* Our total loss in killed and 
wounded was 1,071. Of the cavalry division there 
were, all told, some 2,300 officers and men, of 

*The total Spanish force in Santiago under General Linares 
was 6,000: 4,000 regulars, 1,000 volunteers, and 1,000 marines 
and sailors from the ships. (Diary of the British Consul, 
Frederick W. Ramsden, entry of July ist.) Four thousand 
more troops entered next day. Of the 6,000 troops, 600 or 
thereabouts were at El Caney, and 900 in the forts at the 
mouth of the harbor. Lieutenant Tejeiro states that there 
were 520 men at El Caney, 970 in the forts at the mouth of 
the harbor, and 3,000 in the lines, not counting the cavalry 
and civil guard which were in reserve. He certainly very 
much understates the Spanish force; thus he nowhere ac- 
counts for the engineers mentioned on p. 135 ; and his figures 
would make the total number of Spanish artillerymen but 32. 
He excludes the cavalry, the civil guard, and the marines 
which had been stationed at the Plaza del Toros; yet he later 
mentions that these marines were brought up, and their com- 
mander, Bustamente, severely wounded; he states that the 
cavalry advanced to cover the retreat of the infantry, and I 
myself saw the cavalry come forward, for the most part dis- 
mounted, when the Spaniards attempted a forward movement 
late in the afternoon, and we shot many of their horses ; while 
later I saw and conversed with officers and men of the civil 
guard who had been wounded at the same time — this in con- 
nection with returning them their wives and children, after 
the latter had fled from the city. Although the engineers are 
excluded. Lieutenant Tejeiro mentions that their colonel, as 
well as the colonel of the artillery, was wounded. Four thou- 
sand five hundred is surely an understatement of the forces 
which resisted the attack of the forces under Wheeler. Lieu- 
tenant Tejeiro is very careless in his figures. Thus in one 
place he states that the position of San Juan was held by two 
companies comprising 250 soldiers. Later he says it was held 
by three companies, whose strength he puts at 300 — thus mak- 



The Cavalry at Santiago 155 

whom 375 were killed and wounded. In the 
division over a fourth of the officers were killed or 
wounded, their loss being relatively half as great 

ing them average lOO instead of 125 men apiece. He then 
mentions another echelon of two companies, so situated as 
to cross their fire with the others. Doubtless the block-house 
and trenches at Fort San Juan proper were only held by three 
or four hundred men; they were taken by the Sixth and Six- 
teenth Infantry under Hawkins's immediate command; and 
they formed but one point in the line of hills, trenches, ranch- 
houses, and block-houses which the Spaniards held, and from 
which we drove them. When the city capitulated later, over 
8,000 unwounded troops and over 16,000 rifles and carbines 
were surrendered; by that time the marines and sailors had 
of course gone, and the volunteers had disbanded. 

In all these figures I have taken merely the statements from 
the Spanish side. I am inclined to think the actual numbers 
were much greater than those here given. Lieutenant Wiley, 
in his book "In Cuba with Shafter," which is practically an 
official statement, states that nearly 11,000 Spanish troops were 
surrendered; and this is the number given by the Spaniards 
themselves in the remarkable letter the captured soldiers ad- 
dressed to General Shafter, which Wiley quotes in full. Lieu- 
tenant Tejeiro, in his chap, xiv., explains that the volunteers 
had disbanded before the end came, and the marines and sail- 
ors had of course gone, while nearly a thousand men had been 
killed or captured or had died of wounds and disease, so that 
there must have been at least 14,000 all told. Subtracting the 
reinforcements who arrived on the 2d, this would mean about 
10,000 Spaniards present on the ist; in which case Kent and 
Wheeler were opposed by at least equal numbers. 

In dealing with the Spanish losses. Lieutenant Tejeiro con- 
tradicts himself. He puts their total loss on this day at 593, 
including 94 killed, 121 missing, and 2 prisoners — 217 in all. 
Yet he states that of the 520 men at Caney but 80 got back, 
the remaining 440 being killed, captured, or missing. When 



156 The Rough Riders 

again as that of the enlisted men — which was as it 
should be. 

I think we suffered more heavily than the Span- 
iards did in killed and wounded (though we also 
captured some scores of prisoners). It would have 
been very extraordinary if the reverse was the case, 
for we did the charging; and to carry earthworks 
on foot with dismounted cavalry, when these earth- 
works are held by unbroken infantry armed with the 
best modern rifles, is a serious task. 

we captured the city we found in the hospitals over 2,000 seri- 
ously wounded and sick Spaniards; on making inquiries, I 
found that over a third were wounded. From these facts I 
feel that it is safe to put down the total Spanish loss in bat- 
tle as at least 1,200, of whom over a thousand were killed and 
wounded. 

Lieutenant Tejeiro, while rightly claiming credit for the 
courage shown by the Spaniards, also praises the courage and 
resolution of the Americans, saying that they fought, "con 
un arrojo y una decision verdaderamente admirables." He 
dwells repeatedly upon the determination with which our 
troops kept charging though themselves unprotected by cover. 
As for the Spanish troops, all who fought them that day will 
most freely admit the courage they showed. At El Caney, 
where they were nearly hemmed in, they made a most des- 
perate defence ; at San Juan the way to retreat was open, and 
so, though they were seven times as numerous, they fought 
with less desperation, but still very gallantly. 



V 

IN THE TRENCHES 

WHEN the shrapnel burst among us on the hill- 
side we made up our minds that we had 
better settle down to solid siege work. All of the 
men who were not in the trenches I took off to the 
right, back of the Catling guns, where there was 
a valley, and dispersed them by troops in sheltered 
parts. It took us an hour or two's experimenting 
to find out exactly what spots were free from dan- 
ger, because some of the Spanish sharp-shooters 
were in trees in our front, where we could not pos- 
sibly place them from the trenches ; and these were 
able to reach little hollows and depressions where 
the men were entirely safe from the Spanish artil- 
lery and from their trench-fire. Moreover, in one 
hollow, which we thought safe, the Spaniards suc- 
ceeded in dropping a shell, a fragment of which 
went through the head of one of my men, who, as- 
tonishing to say, lived, although unconscious, for 
two hours afterward. Finally, I got all eight troops 
settled, and the men promptly proceeded to make 
themselves as much at home as possible. For the 

(157) 



158 The Rough Riders 

next twenty-four hours, however, the amount of 
comfort was small, as in the way of protection and 
covering we only had what blankets, raincoats, and 
hammocks we took from the dead Spaniards. Am- 
munition, which was, of course, the most vital need, 
was brought up in abundance; but very little food 
reached us. That afternoon we had just enough to 
allow each man for his supper two hardtacks, and 
one hardtack extra for every four men. 

During the first night we had dug trenches suf- 
ficient in length and depth to shelter our men and 
ineure safety against attack, but we had not put in 
any traverses or approaches, nor had we arranged 
the trenches at all points in the best places for of- 
fensive work; for we were working at night on 
ground which we had but partially explored. Later 
on an engineer officer stated that he did not think 
our work had been scientific ; and I assured him that 
I did not doubt that he was right, for I had never 
before seen a trench, excepting those we captured 
from the Spaniards, or heard of a traverse, save as 
I vaguely remembered reading about them in books. 
For such w^ork as we were engaged in, however, the 
problem of int}*enchment was comparatively simple, 
and the work we did proved entirely adequate. No 
man in my regiment was ever hit in the trenches or 
going in or out of them. 

But on the first day there was plenty of excite- 



In the Trenches 159 

ment connected with relieving the firing line. Un- 
der the intense heat, crowded down in cramped 
attitudes in the rank, newly dug, poisonous soil of 
the trenches, the men needed to be relieved every 
six hours or so. Accordingly, in the late morning, 
and again in the afternoon, I arranged for their re- 
lease. On each occasion I waited until there was a 
lull in the firing and then started a sudden rush by 
the relieving party, who tumbled into the trenches 
every which way. The movement resulted on each 
occasion in a terrific outburst of fire from the Span- 
ish lines, which proved quite harmless; and as it 
gradually died away the men who had been re- 
lieved got out as best they could. Fortunately, 
by the next day I was able to abandon this primitive, 
though thrilling and wholly novel, mihtary method 
of relief. 

When the hardtack came up that afternoon I felt 
much sympathy for the hungry unfortunates in the 
trenches and hated to condemn them to six hours 
more without food; but I did not know how to get 
food in to them. Little IMcGinty, the bronco buster, 
volunteered to make the attempt, and I gave him per- 
mission. He simply took a case of hardtack in his 
arms and darted toward the trenches. The dis- 
tance was but short, and though there was an out- 
burst of fire, he was actually missed. One bullet, 
however, passed through the case of hardtack just 



i6o The Rough Riders 

before he disappeared with it into the trench. A 
trooper named Shanafelt repeated the feat, later, 
with a pail of coffee. Another trooper, George 
King, spent a leisure hour in the rear making soup 
out of some rice and other stuff he found in a Span- 
ish house; he brought some of it to General Wood, 
Jack Green way, and myself, and nothing could have 
tasted more delicious. 

At this time our army in the trenches numbered 
about ii,ooo men, and the Spaniards in Santiago 
about 9,000,* their reinforcements having just ar- 
rived. Nobody on the firing-line, whatever was 
the case in the rear, felt the slightest uneasiness as 
to the Spaniards being able to break out ; but there 
were plenty who doubted the advisability of trying 
to rush the heavy earthworks and wire defences in 
our front. 

All day long the firing continued — musketry and 
cannon. Our artillery gave up the attempt to fight 
on the firing-line, and was withdrawn well to the 
rear out of range of the Spanish rifles ; so far as we 
could see, it accomplished very little. The dyna- 

* This is probably an understatement. Lieutenant Miiller, 
in chap, xxxviii. of his book, says that there were "eight or 
nine thousand;" this is exclusive of the men from the fleet, 
and apparently also of many of the volunteers (see chap, xiv.), 
all of whom were present on July 2d. I am inclined to think 
that on the evening of that day there were more Spanish 
troops inside Santiago than there were American troops out- 
side. 



In the Trenches i6i 

mite gun was brought up to the right of the regi- 
mental Hne. It was more effective than the regular 
artillery because it was fired with smokeless powder, 
and as it was used like a mortar from behind the 
hill, it did not betray its presence, and those firing 
it suffered no loss. Every few shots it got out of 
order, and the Rough Rider machinists and those 
furnished by Lieutenant Parker — whom we by this 
time began to consider as an exceedingly valuable 
member of our own regiment — would spend an hour 
or two in setting it right. Sergeant Borrowe had 
charge of it and handled it well. With him was 
Sergeant Guitilias, a gallant old fellow, a veteran 
of the Civil War, whose duties were properly those 
of standard-bearer, he having charge of the yellow 
cavalry standard of the regiment; but in the Cuban 
campaign he was given the more active work of 
helping run the dynamite gun. The shots from the 
dynamite gun made a terrific explosion, but they 
did not seem to go accurately. Once one of them 
struck a Spanish trench and wrecked part of it. On 
another occasion one struck a big building, from 
which there promptly swarmed both Spanish cav- 
alry and infantry, on whom the Colt automatic guns 
played with good effect during the minute that 
elapsed before they could get other cover. 

These Colt automatic guns were not, on the whole, 
very successful. The gun detail was under the 



1 62 The Rough Riders 

charge of Sergeant (afterward Lieutenant) Tif- 
fany, assisted by some of our best men, like Ste- 
phens, Crowninshield, Bradley, Smith, and Herrig. 
The guns were mounted on tripods. They were 
too heavy for men to carry any distance and we 
could not always get mules. They would have been 
more effective if mounted on wheels, as the Gat- 
lings were. Moreover, they proved more delicate 
than the Catlings, and very readily got out of order. 
A further and serious disadvantage was that they 
did not use the Krag ammunition, as the Catlings 
did, but the Mauser ammunition. The Spanish car- 
tridges which we captured came in quite handily 
for this reason. Parker took the same fatherly in- 
terest in these two Colts that he did in the dynamite 
gun, and finally I put all three and their men under 
his immediate care, so that he had a battery of seven 
guns. 

In fact, I think Parker deserved rather more 
credit than any other one man in the entire cam- 
paign. I do not allude especially to his courage 
and energ}% great though they were, for there were 
hundreds of his fellow-officers of the cavalry and in- 
fantry who possessed as much of the former quality, 
and scores who possessed as much of the latter; 
but he had the rare good judgment and foresight to 
see the possibilities of the machine-guns, and thanks 
to the aid of Ceneral Shafter, he was able to or- 



In the Trenches 163 

ganize his battery. He then, by his own exertions, 
got it to the front and proved that it could do in- 
valuable work on the field of battle, as much in at- 
tack as in defence. Parker's Catlings were our 
inseparable companions throughout the siege. After 
our trenches were put in final shape, he took ofif 
the wheels of a couple and placed them with our 
own two Colts in the trenches. His gunners slept 
beside the Rough Riders in the bomb-proofs, and 
the men shared with one another when either side 
got a supply of beans or of coffee and sugar; for 
Parker was as wide-awake and energetic in getting 
food for his men as we prided ourselves upon being 
in getting food for ours. Besides, he got oil, and 
let our men have plenty for their rifles. At no hour 
of the day or night was Parker anywhere but where 
we wished him to be in the event of an attack. If 
I was ordered to send a troop of Rough Riders to 
guard some road or some break in the lines, we 
usually got Parker to send a Catling along, and 
whether the change was made by day or by night, 
the Catlings went, over any ground and in any 
weather. He never exposed the Catlings needlessly 
or unless there was some object to be gained, but 
if serious fighting broke out, he always took a hand. 
Sometimes this fighting would be the result of an 
effort on our part to quell the fire from the Span- 
ish trenches; sometimes the Spaniards took the ini- 



164 The Rough Riders 

tiative; but at whatever hour of the twenty- four 
serious fighting began, the drumming of the Gat- 
Hngs was soon heard through the cracking of our 
own carbines. 

I have spoken thus of Parker's Gathng detach- 
ment. How can I speak highly enough of the regu- 
lar cavalry with whom it was our good fortune to 
serve? I do not believe that in any army of the 
world could be found a more gallant and soldierly 
body of fighters than the officers and men of the 
First, Third, Sixth, Ninth, and Tenth United 
States Cavalry, beside whom we marched to blood- 
bought victory under the tropic skies of Santiago. 
The American regular sets the standard of excel- 
lence. When we wish to give the utmost possible 
praise to a volunteer organization, we say that it is 
as good as the regulars. I was exceedingly proud 
of the fact that the regulars treated my regiment as 
on a complete equality with themselves, and were 
as ready to see it in a post of danger and respon- 
sibility as to see any of their own battalions. Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Dorst, a man from whom praise 
meant a good deal, christened us "the Eleventh 
United States Horse," and we endeavored, I think 
I may say successfully, to show that we deserved the 
title by our conduct, not only in fighting and in 
marching, but in guarding the trenches and in po- 
licing camp. In less than sixty days the regiment 



In the Trenches 165 

had been raised, organized, armed, equipped, drilled, 
mounted, dismounted, kept for a fortnight on trans- 
ports, and put through two victorious aggressive 
fights in very difficult country, the loss in killed and 
wounded amounting to a quarter of those engaged. 
This is a record which it is not easy to match in the 
history of volunteer organizations. The loss was 
but small compared to that which befell hundreds 
of regiments in some of the great battles of the later 
years of the Civil War; but it may be doubted 
whether there was any regiment which made such 
a record during the first months of any of our wars. 
After the battle of San Juan my men had really 
become veterans; they and I understood each other 
perfectly, and trusted each other implicitly; they 
knew I would share every hardship and danger with 
them, would do everything in my power to see that 
they were fed, and so far as might be, sheltered and 
spared; and in return I knew that they would en- 
dure every kind of hardship and fatigue without a 
murmur and face every danger with entire fearless- 
ness. I felt utter confidence in them, and would 
have been more than willing to put them to any 
task which any crack regiment of the world, at home 
or abroad, could perform. They were natural fight- 
ers, men of great intelligence, great courage, great 
hardihood, and physical prowess ; and I could draw 
on these qualities and upon their spirit of ready, sol- 



i66 The Rough Riders 

dierly obedience to make up for any deficiencies in 
the technique of the trade which they had tempo- 
rarily adopted. It must be remembered that they 
were already good individual fighters, skilled in the 
use of the horse and the rifle, so that there was no 
need of putting them through the kind of training 
in which the ordinary raw recruit must spend his 
first year or two. 

On July 2d, as the day wore on, the fight, though 
raging fitfully at intervals, gradually died away. 
The Spanish guerillas were causing us much trouble. 
They showed great courage, exactly as did their 
soldiers who were defending the trenches. In fact, 
the Spaniards throughout showed precisely the 
qualities they did early in the century, when, as 
every student will remember, their fleets were a 
helpless prey to the English warships, and their 
armies utterly unable to stand in the open against 
those of Napoleon's marshals, while on the other 
hand their guerillas performed marvelous feats, and 
their defence of intrenchments and walled towns, as 
at Saragossa and Gerona, were the wonder of the 
civilized world. 

In our front their sharp-shooters crept up before 
dawn and either lay in the thick jungle or climbed 
into some tree with dense foliage. In these places 
it proved almost impossible to place them, as they 
kept cover very carefully, and their smokeless pow- 



In the Trenches 167 

der betrayed not the slightest sign of their where- 
abouts. They caused us a great deal of annoyance 
and some Httle loss, and though our own sharp- 
shooters were continually taking shots at the places 
where they supposed them to be, and though oc- 
casionally we would play a Catling or a Colt all 
through the top of a suspicious tree, I but twice saw 
Spaniards brought down out of their perches from 
in front of our lines — on each occasion the fall of 
the Spaniard being hailed with loud cheers by our 
men. 

These sharp-shooters in our front did perfectly 
legitimate work, and were entitled to all credit for 
their courage and skill. It was different with the 
guerillas in our rear. Quite a number of these had 
been posted in trees at the time of the San Juan 
fight. They were using, not Mausers, but Reming- 
tons, which shot smokeless powder and a brass- 
coated bullet. It was one of these bullets which had 
hit Winslow Clark by my side on Kettle Hill ; and 
though for long-range fighting the Remingtons 
were, of course, nothing like as good as the Mau- 
sers, they were equally serviceable for short-range 
bush work, as they used smokeless powder. When 
our troops advanced and the Spaniards in the tren- 
ches and in reserve behind the hill fled, the guerillas 
in the trees had no time to get away and in conse- 
quence were left in the rear of our lines. As we 



1 68 The Rough Riders 

found out from the prisoners we took, the Spanish 
officers had been careful to instil into the minds of 
their soldiers the belief that the Americans never 
granted quarter, and I suppose it was in conse- 
quence of this that the guerillas did not surrender; 
for we found that the Spaniards were anxious 
enough to surrender as soon as they became con- 
vinced that we would treat them mercifully. At 
any rate, these guerillas kept up in their trees and 
showed not only courage but wanton cruelty and 
barbarity. At times they fired upon armed men in 
bodies, but they much preferred for their victims 
the unarmed attendants, the doctors, the chaplains, 
the hospital stewards. They fired at the men who 
were bearing off the wounded in litters; they fired 
at the doctors who came to the front, and at the 
chaplains who started to hold burial service; the 
conspicuous Red Cross brassard worn by all of these 
non-combatants, instead of serving as a protection, 
seemed to make them the special objects of the 
guerilla fire. So annoying did they become that I 
sent out that afternoon and next morning a detail 
of picked sharp-shooters to hunt them out, choos- 
ing, of course, first-class woodsmen and mountain 
men who were also good shots. My sharp-shooters 
felt very vindictively toward these guerillas and 
showed them no quarter. They started systemati- 
cally to hunt them, and showed themselves much 



In the Trenches 169 

superior at the guerillas' own game, killing eleven, 
while not one of my men was scratched. Two of 
the men who did conspicuously good service in this 
work were Troopers Goodwin and Proffit, both of 
Arizona, but one by birth a Californian and the 
other a North Carolinian. Goodwin was a natu- 
ral shot, not only with the rifle and revolver, but 
with the sling. Proffit might have stood as a type 
of the mountaineers described by John Fox and 
Miss Murfree. He was a tall, sine^vy, handsome 
man of remarkable strength, an excellent shot and 
a thoroughly good soldier. His father had been 
a Confederate officer, rising from the ranks, and if 
the war had lasted long enough the son would have 
risen in the same manner. As it was, I should 
have been glad to have given him a commission, 
exactly as I should have been glad to have given a 
number of others in the regiment commissions, if 
I had only had them. Proffit was a saturnine, re- 
served man, who afterward fell very sick with the 
fever, and who, as a reward for his soldierly good 
conduct, was often granted unusual privileges; but 
he took the fever and the privileges with the same 
iron indifference, never grumbling, and never ex- 
pressing satisfaction. 

The sharp-shooters returned by nightfall. Soon 
afterward I established my pickets and outposts 
well to the front in the jungle, so as to prevent all 

Vol. XL— H 



lyo The Rough Riders 

possibility of surprise. After dark, fires suddenly 
shot up on the mountain passes far to our right. 
They all rose together and we could make nothing 
of them. After a good deal of consultation, we 
decided they must be some signals to the Spaniards 
in Santiago, from the troops marching to reinforce 
them from without — for we were ignorant that the 
reinforcements had already reached the city, the 
Cubans being quite unable to prevent the Spanish 
regulars from marching wherever they wished. 
While we were thus pondering over the watch-fires 
and attributing them to Spanish machinations of 
some sort, it appears that the Spaniards, equally 
puzzled, were setting them down as an attempt at 
communication between the insurgents and our 
army. Both sides were accordingly on the alert, 
and the Spaniards must have strengthened their out- 
lying parties in the jungle ahead of us, for they 
suddenly attacked one of our pickets, wounding 
Crockett seriously. He was brought in by the 
other troopers. Evidently the Spanish lines felt 
a little nervous, for this sputter of shooting was im- 
mediately followed by a tremendous fire of great 
guns and rifles from their trenches and batteries. 
Our men in the trenches responded heavily, and 
word was sent back, not only to me, but to the com- 
manders in the rear of the regiments along our 
line, that the Spaniards were attacking. It was im- 



In the Trenches 171 

perative to see what was really going on, so I ran 
up to the trenches and looked out. At night it 
was far easier to place the Spanish lines than by day, 
because the flame-spurts shone in the darkness. I 
could soon tell that there were bodies of Spanish 
pickets or skirmishers in the jungle-covered valley, 
between their lines and ours, but that the bulk of 
the fire came from their trenches and showed not 
the slightest symptom of advancing; moreover, as 
is generally the case at night, the fire was almost all 
high, passing well overhead, with an occasional bul- 
let near by. 

I came to the conclusion that there was no use 
in our firing back under such circumstances; and 
I could tell that the same conclusion had been 
reached by Captain Ayres of the Tenth Cavalry on 
the right of my line, for even above the cracking of 
the carbines rose the Captain's voice as with varied 
and picturesque language he bade his black troopers 
cease firing. The Captain was as absolutely fearless 
as a man can be. He had command of his regimen- 
tal trenches that night, and, having run up at the 
first alarm, had speedily satisfied himself that no 
particular purpose was served by blazing away in 
the dark, when the enormous majority of the Span- 
iards were simply shooting at random from their 
own trenches, and, if the}^ ever had thought of ad- 
vancing, had certainly given up the idea. His 



172 The Rough Riders 

troopers were devoted to him, would follow him 
anywhere, and would do anything he said; but 
when men get firing at night it is rather difficult to 
stop them, especially when the fire of the enemy in 
front continues unabated. When he first reached 
the trenches it was impossible to say whether or not 
there was an actual night attack impending, and he 
had been instructing his men, as I instructed mine, 
to fire low, cutting the grass in front. As soon as 
he became convinced that there was no night attack, 
he ran up and down the line adjuring and command- 
ing the troopers to cease shooting, with words and 
phrases which were doubtless not wholly unlike 
those which the Old Guard really did use at 
Waterloo. 

As I ran down my own line, I could see him 
coming up his, and he saved me all trouble in stop- 
ping the fire at the right, where the lines met, for 
my men there all dropped everything to listen to him 
and cheer and laugh. Soon we got the troopers in 
hand, and made them cease firing; then, after a while 
the Spanish fire died down. At the time we spoke 
of this as a night attack by the Spaniards, but it 
really was not an attack at all. Ever after my men 
had a great regard for Ayres, and would have fol- 
lowed him anywhere. 

I shall never forget the way in which he scolded 
his huge, devoted black troopers, generally ending 



In the Trenches 173 

with "I'm ashamed of you, ashamed of you! I 
wouldn't have believed it! Firing; when I told 
you to stop I I'm ashamed of you !" 

That night we spent in perfecting the trenches 
and arranging entrances to them, doing about as 
much work as we had the preceding night. Green- 
way and Goodrich, from their energy, eagerness to 
do every duty, and great physical strength, were pe- 
culiarly useful in this work ; as, indeed, they were in 
all work. They had been up practically the entire 
preceding night, but they were too good men for me 
to spare them, nor did they wish to be spared ; and I 
kept them up all this night too. Goodrich had also 
been on guard as officer of the day the night we 
were at El Paso, so that it turned out that he spent 
nearly four days and three nights with practically 
hardly any sleep at all. 

Next morning, at daybreak, the firing began 
again. This day, the 3d, we suffered nothing, save 
having one man wounded by a sharp-shooter, and, 
thanks to the approaches to the trenches, we were 
able to relieve the guards without any difficulty. 
The Spanish sharp-shooters in the trees and jungle 
nearby, however, annoyed us very much, and I made 
preparations to fix them next day. With this end 
in view I chose out some twenty first-class men, in 
many instances the same that I had sent after the 
guerillas, and arranged that each should take his 



174 The Rough Riders 

canteen and a little food. They were to slip into 
the jungle between us and the Spanish lines before 
dawn next morning, and there to spend the day, get- 
ting as close to the Spanish lines as possible, moving 
about with great stealth, and picking off any hostile 
sharp-shooter, as well as any soldier who exposed 
himself in the trenches. I had plenty of men who 
possessed a training in wood-craft that fitted them 
for this work ; and as soon as the rumor got abroad 
what I was planning, volunteers thronged to me. 
Daniels and Love were two of the men always to the 
front in any enterprise of this nature ; so were Wads- 
worth, the two Bulls, Fortescue, and Cowdin. But 
I could not begin to name all the troopers who so 
eagerly craved the chance to win honor out of hazard 
and danger. 

Among them was good, solemn Fred Herrig, the 
Alsatian. I knew Fred's patience and skill as a 
hunter from the trips we had taken together after 
deer and mountain sheep through the Bad Lands 
of the Little Missouri. He still spoke English with 
what might be called Alsatian variations — he always 
spoke of the gun detail as the "gondetle," with the 
accent on the first syllable — and he expressed a wish 
to be allowed "a holiday from the gondetle to go 
after dem gorrillas." I told him he could have the 
holiday, but to his great disappointment the truce 
came first, and then Fred asked that, inasmuch as 



In the Trenches 175 

the "gorrillas" were now forbidden g^me, he might 
be allowed to go after guinea-hens instead. 

Even after the truce, however, some of my sharp- 
shooters had occupation, for two guerillas in our 
rear took occasional shots at the men who were 
bathing in a pond, until one of our men spied them, 
when they were both speedily brought down. One 
of my riflemen who did best at this kind of work, by 
the way, got into trouble because of it. He was 
much inflated by my commendation of him, and 
when he went back to his troop he declined to obey 
the first Sergeant's orders on the ground that he was 
"the Colonel's sharp-shooter." The Lieutenant in 
command, being somewhat puzzled, brought him to 
.me, and I had to explain that if the offence, disobe- 
dience of orders in face of the enemy, was repeated 
lie might incur the death penalty ; whereat he looked 
very crestfallen. That afternoon he got permission, 
like Fred Herrig, to go after guinea-hens, which 
w^ere found wild in some numbers round about ; and 
he sent me the only one he got as a peace offering. 
The few guinea-hens thus procured were all used 
for the sick. 

Dr. Church had established a little field hospital 
under the shoulder of the hill in our rear. He was 
himself very sick and had almost nothing in the way 
of medicine or supplies or apparatus of any kind, 
but the condition of the wounded in the big field 



176 The Rough Riders 

hospitals in the rear was so horrible, from the lack 
of attendants as well as of medicines, that we kept 
all the men we possibly could at the front. Some 
of them had now begun to come down with fever. 
They were all very patient, but it was pitiful to see 
the sick and wounded soldiers lying on their blank- 
ets, if they had any, and if not then simply in the 
mud, with nothing to eat but hardtack and pork, 
which of course they could not touch when their 
fever got high, and with no chance to get more than 
the rudest attention. Among the very sick here 
was gallant Captain Llewellen. I feared he was 
going to die. We finally had to send him to one of 
the big hospitals in the rear. Doctors Brewer and 
Fuller of the Tenth had been unwearying in attend- 
ing to the wounded, including many of those of my 
regiment. 

At twelve o'clock we were notified to stop firing 
and a flag of truce was sent in to demand the sur- 
render of the city. The negotiations gave us a 
breathing spell. 

That afternoon I arranged to get our baggage 
up, sending back strong details of men to carry up 
their own goods, and, as usual, impressing into the 
service a kind of improvised pack-train consisting of 
the officers' horses, of two or three captured Spanish 
cavalry horses, two or three mules which had been 
shot and abandoned and which our men had taken 



In the Trenches 177 

and cured, and two or three Cuban ponies. Hither- 
to we had simply been sleeping by the trenches or 
immediately in their rear, with nothing in the way 
of shelter and only one blanket to every three or 
four men. Fortunately there had been little 
rain. 

We now got up the shelter tents of the men and 
some flies for the hospital and for the officers; 
and my personal baggage appeared. I celebrated 
its advent by a thorough wash and shave. 

Later, I twice snatched a few hours to go to the 
rear and visit such of my men as I could find in the 
hospitals. Their patience was extraordinary. Ken- 
neth Robinson, a gallant young trooper, though 
himself severely (I supposed at the time mortally) 
wounded, was noteworthy for the way in which he 
tended those among the wounded who were even 
more helpless, and the cheery courage with which 
he kept up their spirits. Gievers, who was shot 
through the hips, rejoined us at the front in a fort- 
night. Captain Day was hardly longer away. Jack 
Hammer, who, with poor Race Smith, a gallant 
Texas lad who was mortally hurt beside me on the 
summit of the hill, had been on kitchen detail, was 
wounded and sent to the rear ; he was ordered to go 
to the United States, but he heard that we were to 
assault Santiago, so he struggled out to join us, and 
thereafter stayed at the front. Cosby, badly 



1 78 The Rough Riders 

wounded, made his way down to the sea-coast in 
three days, unassisted. 

With all volunteer troops, and I am inclined to 
think with regulars, too, in time of trial, the best 
work can be got out of the men only if the officers 
endure the same hardships and face the same risks. 
In my regiment, as in the whole cavalry division, the 
proportion of loss in killed and woimded was con- 
siderably greater among the officers than among 
the troopers, and this was exactly as it should be. 
Moreover, when we got down to hard pan, we all, 
officers and men, fared exactly alike as regards both 
shelter and food. This prevented any grumbling. 
When the troopers saw that the officers had nothing 
but hardtack, there was not a man in the regiment 
who would not have been ashamed to grumble at 
faring no worse, and when all alike slept out in the 
open, in the rear of the trenches, and when the 
men always saw the field officers up at night, during 
the digging of the trenches, and going the rounds 
of the outposts, they would not tolerate, in any of 
their number, either complaint or shirking work. 
When things got easier I put up my tent and lived 
a little apart, for it is a mistake for an officer ever 
to grow too familiar with his men, no matter how 
good they are; and it is of course the greatest pos- 
sible mistake to seek popularity either by showing 
weakness or by mollycoddling the men. They will 



In the Trenches 179 

never respect a commander who does not enforce 
discipline, who does not know his duty, and who is 
not wilHng both himself to encounter and to make 
them encounter every species of danger and hard- 
ship when necessary. The soldiers who do not feel 
this way are not worthy of the name and should be 
handled with iron severity until they become fight- 
ing men and not shams. In return the officer 
should carefully look after his men, should see that 
they are well fed and well sheltered, and that, no 
matter how much they may grumble, they keep the 
camp ♦;horoughly policed. 

After the cessation of the three days' fighting we 
began to get our rations regularly and had plenty of 
hardtack and salt pork, and usually about half the 
ordinary amount of sugar and coffee. It was not 
a very good ration for the tropics, however, and was 
of very little use indeed to the sick and half sick. 
On one or two occasions during the siege I got my 
improvised pack-train together and either took or 
sent it down to the sea-coast for beans, canned to- 
matoes, and the like. We got these either from the 
transports which were still landing stores on the 
beach or from the Red Cross. If I did not go my- 
self I sent some man who had shown that he was a 
driving, energetic, tactful fellow, who would some- 
how get what we wanted. Chaplain Brown de- 
veloped great capacity in this line, and so did one 



i8o The Rough Riders 

of the troopers named Knoblauch, he who had 
dived after the rifles that had sunk off the pier at 
Daiquiri. The suppHes of food we got in this way 
had a very beneficial effect, not only upon the men's 
health, but upon their spirits. To the Red Cross 
and similar charitable organizations we owe a great 
deal. We also owed much to Colonel Weston of 
the Commissary Department, who always helped 
us and never let himself be hindered by red tape; 
thus he always let me violate the absurd regulation 
which forbade me, even in war time, to purchase 
food for my men from the stores, although letting 
me purchase for the officers. I, of course, paid 
no heed to the regulation when by violating it I 
could get beans, canned tomatoes, or tobacco. 
Sometimes I used my own money, sometimes what 
was given me by Woody Kane, or what was sent me 
by my brother-in-law, Douglas Robinson, or by the 
other Red Cross people in New York. My regiment 
did not fare very well; but I think it fared better 
than any other. Of course no one would have 
minded in the least such hardships as we endured 
had there been any need of enduring them ; but there 
was none. System and sufficiency of transporta- 
tion were all that were needed. 

On one occasion a foreign military attache vis- 
ited my headquarters together with a foreign cor- 
respondent who had been through the Turco-Greek 



In the Trenches i8i 

war. They were both most friendly critics, and as 
they knew I was aware of this, the correspondent 
finally ventured the remark, that he thought our sol- 
diers fought even better than the Turks, but that on 
the whole our system of military administration 
seemed rather worse than that of the Greeks. As a 
nation we had prided ourselves on our business ability 
and adroitness in the arts of peace, while outsiders, at 
any rate, did not credit us with any especial warlike 
prowess ; and it was curious that when war came we 
should have broken down precisely on the business 
and administrative side, while the fighting edge of 
the troops certainly left little to be desired. 

I was very much touched by the devotion my 
men showed to me. After they had once become 
convinced that I would share their hardships, they 
made it a point that I should not suffer any hard- 
ships at all; and I really had an extremely easy 
time. Whether I had any food or not myself made 
no difference, as there were sure to be certain 
troopers, and, indeed, certain troop messes, on the 
lookout for me. If they had any beans they would 
send me over a cupful, or I would suddenly receive 
a present of doughnuts from some ex-roundup cook 
who had succeeded in obtaining a little flour and 
sugar, and if a man shot a guinea-hen it was all I 
could do to make him keep half of it for himself. 
Wright, the color sergeant, and Henry Bardshar, 



1 82 The Rough Riders f 

my orderly, always pitched and struck my tent and 
built me a bunk of bamboo poles, whenever we 
changed camp. So I personally endured very little 
discomfort; for, of course, no one minded the two 
or three days preceding- or following each fight, when 
we all had to get along as best we could. Indeed, 
as long as we werfe under fire or in the immediate 
presence of the enemy, and I had plenty to do, there 
was nothing of which I could legitimately complain ; 
and what I really did regard as hardships, my men 
did not object to — for later on, when we had some 
leisure, I would have given much for complete soli- 
tude and some good books. 

Whether there was a truce, or whether, as some- 
times happened, we were notified that there was no 
truce but merely a further cessation of hostilities by 
tacit agreement, or whether the fight was on, we 
kept equally vigilant watch, especially at night. In 
the trenches every fourth man kept awake, the 
others sleeping beside or behind him on their rifles ; 
and the Cossack post and pickets were pushed out 
in advance beyond the edge of the jungle. At least 
once a night at some irregular hour I tried to visit 
every part of our line, especially if it was dark and 
rainy, although sometimes, when the lines were in 
charge of some officer like Wilcox or Kane, Green- 
way or Goodrich, I became lazy, took ofif my boots, 
and slept all night through. Sometimes at night 



In the Trenches 183 

I went not only along the lines of our own brigade, 
but of the brigades adjoining. It was a matter of 
pride, not only with me, but with all our men, that 
the lines occupied by the Rough Riders should be at 
least as vigilantly guarded as the lines of any reg- 
ular regiment. 

Sometimes at night, when I met other officers 
inspecting their lines, we would sit and talk over 
matters, and wonder what shape the outcome of the 
siege would take. We knew we would capture 
Santiago, but exactly how we would do it we could 
not tell. The failure to establish any depot for pro- 
visions on the fighting-line, where there was hardly 
ever more than twenty- four hours' food ahead, made 
the risk very serious. If a hurricane had struck the 
transports, scattering them to the four winds, or if 
three days of hea\7^ rain had completely broken up 
our communication, as they assuredly would have 
done, we would have been at starvation point on the 
front; and while, of course, we would have lived 
through it somehow and would have taken the city, 
it would only have been after very disagreeable ex- 
periences. As soon as I was able I accumulated for 
my own regiment about forty-eight hours' hardtack 
and salt pork, which I kept so far as possible intact 
to provide against any emergency. 

If the city could be taken without direct assault 
on the intrenchments and wire entanglements, we 



184 The Rough Riders 

earnestly hoped it would be, for such an assault 
meant, as we knew by past experience, the loss of 
a quarter of the attacking regiments (and we were 
bound that the Rough Riders should be one of these 
attacking regiments, if the attack had to be made). 
There was, of course, nobody who would not rather 
have assaulted than have run the risk of failure; 
but we hoped the city would fall without need aris- 
ing for us to suffer the great loss of life which a 
further assault would have entailed. 

Naturally, the colonels and captains had nothing 
to say in the peace negotiations which dragged along 
for the week following the sending in the flag of 
truce. Each day we expected either to see the city 
surrender, or to be told to begin fighting again, 
and toward the end it grew so irksome that we 
would have welcomed even an assault in preference 
to further inaction. I used to discuss matters with 
the officers of my own regiment now and then, and 
with a few of the officers of the neighboring regi- 
ments with whom I had struck up a friendship — 
Parker, Stevens, Beck, Ayres, Morton, and Bough- 
ton. I also saw a good deal of the excellent officers 
on the staffs of Generals Wheeler and Sumner, es- 
pecially Colonel Dorst, Colonel Garlington, Captain 
Howze, Captain Steele, Lieutenant Andrews, and 
Captain Astor Chanler, who, like myself, was a 
volunteer. Chanler was an old friend and a fellow 



In the Trenches 185 

big-game hunter, who had done some good ex- 
ploring work in Africa. I always wished I could 
have had him in my regiment. As for Dorst, he 
was peculiarly fitted to command a regiment. Al- 
though Howze and Andrews were not in my brigade 
I saw a great deal of them, especially of Howze, 
who would have made a nearly ideal regimental 
commander. They were both natural cavalry-men 
and of most enterprising natures, ever desirous of 
pushing to the front and of taking the boldest course. 
The view Howze always took of every emergency 
(a view which found prompt expression in his ac- 
tions when the opportunity offered) made me feel 
like an elderly conservative. 

The week of non-fighting was not all a period of 
truce ; part of the time was passed under a kind of 
nondescript arrangement, when we were told not to 
attack ourselves, but to be ready at any moment to 
repulse an attack and to make preparations for 
meeting it. During these times I busied myself 
in putting our trenches into first-rate shape and in 
building bomb-proofs and traverses. One night I 
got a detail of sixty men from the First, Ninth, and 
Tenth, whose officers always helped us in every way, 
and with these, and with sixty of my own men, I 
dug a long, zigzag trench in advance of the salient 
of my line out to a knoll well in front, from which 
we could command the Spanish trenches and block- 



1 86 The Rough Riders 

houses immediately ahead of us. On this knoll we 
made a kind of bastion consisting of a deep, semi- 
circular trench with sand-bags arranged along the 
edge so as to constitute a wall with loop-holes. Of 
course, when I came to dig this trench, I kept both 
Greenway and Goodrich supervising the work all 
night, and equally of course I got Parker and Stevens 
to help me. By employing as many men as we did 
we were able to get the work so far advanced as to 
provide against interruption before the moon rose, 
which was about midnight. Our pickets were 
thrown far out in the jungle, to keep back the Span- 
ish pickets and prevent any interference with the 
diggers. The men seemed to think the work rather 
good fun than otherwise, the possibility of a brush 
with the Spaniards lending a zest that prevented its 
growing monotonous. 

Parker had taken two of his Gatlings, removed 
the wheels, and mounted them in the trenches ; also 
mounting the two automatic Colts where he deemed 
they could do best service. With the completion 
of the trenches, bomb-proofs, and traverses, and the 
mounting of these guns, the fortifications of the hill 
assumed quite a respectable character, and the Gat- 
ling men christened it Fort Roosevelt, by which 
name it afterward went.* 

During the truce various military attaches and 

* See Parker's "With the Gatlings at Santiago." 



In the Trenches 187 

foreign officers came out to visit us. Two or three 
of the newspaper men, including Richard Harding 
Davis, Caspar Whitney, and John Fox, had already- 
been out to see us, and had been in the trenches dur- 
ing the firing. Among the others were Captains 
Lee and Paget of the British army and navy, fine 
fellows, who really seemed to take as much pride 
in the feats of our men as if we had been bound 
together by the ties of a common nationality instead 
of the ties of race and speech kinship. Another Eng- 
lish visitor was Sir Bryan Leighton, a thrice-wel- 
come guest, for he most thoughtfully brought to me 
half a dozen little jars of deviled ham and potted 
fruit, which enabled me to summon various officers 
down to my tent and hold a feast. Count von 
Gotzen, and a Norwegian attache, Gedde, very good 
fellows both, were also out. One day we were vis- 
ited by a traveling Russian, Prince X., a large, 
blond man, smooth and impenetrable. I introduced 
him to one of the regular army officers, a capital 
fighter and excellent fellow, who, however, viewed 
foreign international politics from a strictly trans- 
Mississippi standpoint. He hailed the Russian with 
frank kindness and took him off to show him around 
the trenches, chatting volubly, and calling him 
"Prince," much as Kentuckians call one another 
"Colonel," As I returned I heard him remarking: 
"You see, Prince, the great result of this war is that 



1 88 The Rough Riders 

it has united the two branches of the Anglo-Saxon 
people; and now that they are together they can 
whip the world, Prince! they can whip the world!" 
— being evidently filled with the pleasing belief that 
the Russian would cordially sympathize with this 
view. The foreign attaches did not always get on 
well with our generals. The two English represen- 
tatives never had any trouble, were heartily admired 
by everybody, and, indeed, were generally treated 
as if they were of our own number; and seemingly 
so regarded themselves. But this was not always 
true of the representatives from Continental Europe. 
One of the latter — a very good fellow, by the way — 
had not altogether approved of the way he was 
treated, and the climax came when he said good-by 
to the General who had special charge of him. The 
General in question was not accustomed to nice eth- 
nic distinctions, and grouped all of the representa- 
tives from Continental Europe under the comprehen- 
sive title of "Dutchmen." When the attache in ques- 
tion came to say farewell, the General responded 
with bluff heartiness, in which perhaps the note of 
sincerity was more conspicuous than that of entire 
good breeding : "Well, good-by ; sorry you're going ; 
which are you, anyhow — the German or the Rus- 
sian?" 

Shortly after midday on the loth fighting began 
again, but it soon became evident that the Spaniards 



In the Trenches 189 

did not have much heart in it. The American field 
artillery was now under the command of General 
Randolph, and he fought it effectively. A mortar 
battery had also been established, though with an 
utterly inadequate supply of ammunition, and this 
rendered some service. Almost the only Rough 
Riders who had a chance to do much firing were 
the men with the Colt automatic guns, and the 
twenty picked sharp-shooters, who were placed in 
the newly dug little fort out at the extreme front. 
Parker had a splendid time with the Catlings and the 
Colts. With these machine guns he completely sil- 
enced the battery in front of us. This battery had 
caused us a good deal of trouble at first, as we could 
not place it. It was immediately in front of the 
hospital, from which many Red Cross flags were 
flying, one of them floating just above this battery, 
from where we looked at it. In consequence, for 
some time, we did not know it was a hostile battery 
at all, as, like all the other Spanish batteries, it was 
using smokeless powder. It was only by the aid of 
powerful' glasses that we finally discovered its real 
nature. The Catlings and Colts then actually put 
it out of action, silencing the big guns and the two 
field-pieces. Futhermore, the machine guns and our 
sharp-shooters together did good work in supple- 
menting the effects of the dynamite gun ; for when 
a shell from the latter struck near a Spanish trench, 



190 The Rough Riders 

or a building in which there were Spanish troops, 
the shock was seemingly so great that the Spaniards 
almost always showed themselves, and gave our 
men a chance to do some execution. 

As the evening of the loth came on, the men 
began to make their coffee in sheltered places. By 
this time they knew how to take care of themselves 
so well that not a man was touched by the Spaniards 
during the second bombardment. While I was 
lying with the officers just outside one of the bomb- 
proofs I saw a New Mexican trooper named Mor- 
rison making his coffee under the protection of a 
traverse high up on the hill. Morrison was origi- 
nally a Baptist preacher who had joined the regiment 
purely from a sense of duty, leaving his wife and 
children, and had shown himself to be an excellent 
soldier. He had evidently exactly calculated the 
danger zone, and found that by getting close to the 
traverse he could sit up erect and make ready his 
supper without being cramped. I watched him sol- 
emnly pounding the coffee with the butt end of his 
revolver, and then boiling the water and frying his 
bacon, just as if he had been in the lee of the round- 
up wagon somewhere out on the plains. 

By noon of next day, the nth, my regiment with 
one of the Catlings was shifted over to the right 
to guard the Caney road. We did no fighting in 
our new position, for the last straggling shot had 



In the Trenches 191 

been fired by the time we got there. That evening 
there came up the worst storm we had had, and by 
midnight my tent blew over. I had for the first 
time in a fortnight undressed myself completely, 
and I felt fully punished for my love of luxury when 
I jumped out into the driving downpour of tropic 
rain, and groped blindly in the darkness for my 
clothes as they lay in the liquid mud. It was Kane's 
night on guard, and I knew the wretched Woody 
would be out along the line and taking care of the 
pickets, no matter what the storm might be; and so 
I basely made my way to the kitchen tent, where 
good Holderman, the Cherokee, wrapped me in dry 
blankets, and put me to sleep on a table which he 
had just procured from an abandoned Spanish house. 

On the 17th the city formally surrendered and 
our regiment, like the rest of the army, was drawn 
up on the trenches. When the American flag was 
hoisted the trumpets blared and the men cheered, 
and we knew that the fighting part of our work was 
over. 

Shortly after we took our new position the First 
Illinois Volunteers came up on our right. The next 
day, as a result of the storm and of further rain, the 
rivers were up and the roads quagmires, so that 
hardly any food reached the front. My regiment 
was all right, as we had provided for just such an 
emergency; but the Illinois new-comers had of 



192 The Rough Riders 

course not done so, and they were literally without 
anything to eat. They were fine fellows and we 
could not see them suffer. I furnished thein with 
some beans and coffee for the elder officers and two 
or three cases of hardtack for the men, and then 
mounted my horse and rode down to headquarters, 
half fording, half swimming the streams; and late 
in the evening I succeeded in getting half a mule- 
train of provisions for them. 

On the morning of the 3d the Spaniards had sent 
out of Santiago many thousands of women, chil- 
dren, and other non-combatants, most of them be- 
longing to the poorer classes, but among them not 
a few of the best families. These wretched crea- 
tures took very little with them. They came 
through our lines and for the most part went to El 
Caney in our rear, where we had to feed them and 
protect them from the Cubans. As we had barely 
enough food for our o^vn men the rations of the 
refugees were scanty indeed and their sufferings 
great. Long before the surrender they had begun 
to come to our lines to ask for provisions, and my 
men gave them a good deal out of their own scanty 
stores, until I had positively to forbid it and to in- 
sist that the refugees should go to headquarters ; as, 
however hard and merciless it seemed, I was in duty 
bound to keep my own regiment at the highest pitch 
of fighting efficiency. 



In the Trenches 193 

As soon as the surrender was assured the refu- 
gees came streaming back in an endless squalid pro- 
cession down the Caney road to Santiago. My 
troopers, for all their roughness and their ferocity 
in fight, were rather tender-hearted than otherwise, 
and they helped the poor creatures, especially the 
women and children, in every way, giving them 
food and even carrying the children and the burdens 
borne by the women. I saw one man, Happy Jack, 
spend the entire day in walking to and fro for about 
a quarter of a mile on both sides of our lines along 
the road, carrying the bundles for a series of poor 
old women, or else carrying young children. Finally 
the doctor warned us that we must not touch the 
bundles of the refugees for fear of infection, as 
disease had broken out and was rife among them. 
Accordingly I had to put a stop to these acts of 
kindness on the part of my men; against which ac- 
tion Happy Jack respectfully but strongly protested 
upon the unexpected ground that "the Almighty 
would never let a man catch a disease while he was 
doing a good action." I did not venture to take so 
advanced a theological stand. 



Vol. XL— I 



VI 

THE RETURN HOME 

TWO or three days after the surrender the cav- 
alry division was marched back to the foothills 
v^rest of El Caney, and there went into camp, to- 
gether with the artillery. It was a most beautiful 
spot beside a stream of clear water, but it was not 
healthy. In fact no ground in the neighborhood 
was healthy. For the tropics the climate was not 
bad, and I have no question but that a man who was 
able to take good care of himself could live there all 
the year round with comparative impunity; but the 
case was entirely different with an army which was 
obliged to suffer great exposure, and to live under 
conditions which almost ensured being attacked by 
the severe malarial fever of the country. My own 
men were already suffering badly from fever, and 
they got worse rather than better in the new camp. 
The same was true of the other regiments in the 
cavalry division. A curious feature was that the 
colored troops seemed to suffer as heavily as the 
white. From week to week there were slight rela- 
tive changes, but on the average all the six cavalry 
regiments, the Rough Riders, the white regulars, 
(194) 



The Return Home 195 

and the colored regulars seemed to suffer about 
alike, and we were all very much weakened; about 
as much as the regular infantry, although naturally 
not as much as the volunteer infantry. 

Yet even under such circumstances adventurous 
spirits managed to make their way out to us. In 
the fortnight following the last bombardment of the 
city I enlisted no less than nine such recruits, six 
being from Harvard, Yale, or Princeton; and Bull, 
the former Harvard oar, who had been back to the 
States crippled after the first fight, actually got back 
to us as a stowaway on one of the transports, bound 
to share the luck of the regiment, even if it meant 
yellow fever. 

There were but twelve ambulances with the army, 
and these were quite inadequate for their work ; but 
the conditions in the large field hospital were so 
bad, that as long as possible we kept all of our sick 
men in the regimental hospital at the front. Dr. 
Church did splendid work, although he himself was 
suffering much more than half the time from fever. 
Several of the men from the ranks did equally well, 
especially a young doctor from New York, Harry 
Thorpe, who had enlisted as a trooper, but who was 
now made acting assistant-surgeon. It was with 
the greatest difficulty that Church and Thorpe were 
able to get proper medicine for the sick, and it was 
almost the last day of our stay before we were able 



196 The Rough Riders 

to get cots for them. Up to that time they lay on 
the ground. No food was issued suitable for them, or 
for the half-sick men who were not on the doctor's 
list; the two classes by this time included the bulk 
of the command. Occasionally we got hold of a 
wagon or of some Cuban carts, and at other times I 
used my improvised pack-train (the animals of 
which, however, were continually being taken away 
from us by our superiors) and went or sent back to 
the sea-coast at Siboney or into Santiago itself to get 
rice, flour, cornmeal, oatmeal, condensed milk, pota- 
toes, and canned vegetables. The rice I bought in 
Santiago; the best of the other stuff I got from the 
Red Cross through Mr. George Kennan and Miss 
Clara Barton and Dr. Lesser; but some of it I got 
from our own transports. Colonel Weston, the Com- 
missary-General, as always, rendered us every ser- 
vice in his power. This additional and varied food 
was of the utmost service, not merely to the sick but 
in preventing thewell from becoming sick. Through- 
out the campaign the Division Inspector-General, 
Lieutenant-Colonel Garlington, and Lieutenants 
West and Dickman, the acting division quarter- 
master and commissary, had done everything in 
their power to keep us supplied with food; but 
where there were so few mules and wagons even 
such able and zealous officers could not do the im- 
possible. 



The Return Home 197 

We had the camp policed thoroughly, and I made 
the men build little bunks of poles to sleep on. By- 
July 23, when we had been ashore a month, we were 
able to get fresh meat, and from that time on we 
fared well; but the men were already sickening. 
The chief trouble was the malarial fever, which was 
recurrent. For a few days the man would be very 
sick indeed ; then he would partially recover, and be 
able to go back to work; but after a little time he 
would be again struck down. Every officer other 
than myself except one was down with sickness at 
one time or another. Even Greenway and Good- 
rich succumbed to the fever and were knocked out 
for a few days. Very few of the men indaed re- 
tained their strength and energy, and though the 
percentage actually on the sick list never got over 
twenty, there were less than fifty per cent who were 
fit for any kind of work. All the clothes were in 
rags ; even the officers had neither socks nor under- 
wear. The lithe college athletes had lost their 
spring; the tall, gaunt hunters and cow-punchers 
lounged hstlessly in their dog-tents, which were 
steaming morasses during the torrential rains, and 
then ovens when the sun blazed down; but there 
were no complaints. 

Through some blunder our march from the in- 
trenchments to the camp on the foothills, after the 
surrender, was made during the heat of the day; 



198 The Rough Riders 

and though it was only some five miles or there- 
abouts, very nearly half the men of the cavalry 
division dropped out. Captain Llewellen had come 
back, and led his troop on the march. He carried 
a pick and shovel for one of his sick men, and after 
we reached camp walked back with a mule to get 
another trooper who had fallen out from heat ex- 
haustion. The result was that the captain himself 
went down and became exceedingly sick. We at 
last succeeded in sending him to the States. I never 
thought he would live, but he did, and when I met 
him again at Montauk Point he had practically en- 
tirely recovered. My orderly, Henry Bardshar, was 
struck down, and though he ultimately recovered, 
he was a mere skeleton, having lost over eighty 
pounds. 

Yellow fever also broke out in the rear, chiefly 
among the Cubans. It never became epidemic, but 
it caused a perfect panic among some of our own 
doctors, and especially in the minds of one or two 
generals and of the home authorities. We found 
that whenever we sent a man to the rear he was 
decreed to have yellow fever, whereas, if we kept 
him at the front, it always turned out that he had 
malarial fever, and after a few days he was back at 
work again. I doubt if there were ever more than a 
dozen genuine cases of yellow fever in the whole 
cavalry division ; but the authorities at Washington, 



The Return Home 199 

misled by the reports they received from one or two 
of their mihtary and medical advisers at the front, 
became panic-struck, and under the influence of their 
fears hesitated to bring the army home, lest it might 
import yellow fever into the United States. Their 
panic was absolutely groundless, as shown by the 
fact that when brought home not a single case of 
yellow fever developed upon American soil. Our 
real foe was not the yellow fever at all, but malarial 
fever, which was not infectious, but which was 
certain, if the troops were left throughout the sum- 
mer in Cuba, to destroy them, either killing them 
outright, or weakening them so that they would 
have fallen victims to any disease that attacked 
them. 

However, for a time our prospects were gloomy, 
as the Washington authorities seemed determined 
that we should stay in Cuba. They unfortunately 
knew nothing of the country nor of the circum- 
stances of the army, and the plans that were from 
time to time formulated in the Department (and 
even by an occasional general or surgeon at the 
front) for the management of the army would have 
been comic if they had not possessed such tragic 
possibilities. Thus, at one period it was proposed 
that we should shift camp every two or three days. 
Now, our transportation, as I have pointed out be- 
fore, was utterly inadequate. In theory, under the 



200 The Rough Riders 

regulations of the War Department, each regiment 
should have had at least twenty-five wagons. As a 
matter of fact our regiment often had none, some- 
times one, rarely two, and never three; yet it was 
better off than any other in the cavalry division. 
In consequence it was impossible to carry much of 
anything save what the men had on their backs, and 
half of the men were too weak to walk three miles 
with their packs. Whenever we shifted camp the 
exertion among the half-sick caused our sick-roll 
to double next morning, and it took at least three 
days, even when the shift was for but a short dis- 
tance, before we were able to bring up the officers' 
luggage, the hospital spare food, the ammunition, 
etc. Meanwhile the officers slept wherever they 
could, and those men who had not been able to 
carry their own bedding, slept as the officers did. 
In the weak condition of the men the labor of pitch- 
ing camp vras severe and told heavily upon them. 
In short, the scheme of continually shifting camp 
was impossible of fulfilment. It would merely have 
resulted in the early destruction of the army. 

Again, it was proposed that we should go up the 
mountains and make our camps there. The palm 
and the bamboo grew to the summits of the moun- 
tains, and the soil along their sides was deep and 
soft, while the rains were very heavy, much more so 
than immediately on the coast — every mile or two in- 



The Return Home 201 

land bringing with it a great increase in the rainfall. 
We could, with much difficulty, have got our regi- 
ments up the mountains, but not half the men could 
have got up with their belongings; and once there 
it would have been an impossibility to feed them. 
It was all that could be done, with the limited num- 
ber of wagons and mule-trains on hand, to feed the 
men in the existing camps, for the travel and the 
rain gradually rendered each road in succession 
wholly impassable. To have gone up the moun- 
tains would have meant early starvation. 

The third plan of the Department was even more 
objectionable than either of the others. There was, 
some twenty-five miles in the interior, what was 
called a high interior plateau, and at one period we 
were informed that we were to be marched thither. 
As a matter of fact, this so-called high plateau was 
the sugar-cane country, where, during the summer, 
the rainfall was prodigious. It was a rich, deep 
soil, covered with a rank tropic growth, the guinea- 
grass being higher than the head of a man on horse- 
back. It was a perfect hotbed of malaria, and there 
was no dry ground whatever in which to camp. To 
have sent the troops there would have been simple 
butchery. 

Under these circumstances the alternative to leav- 
ing the country altogether was to stay where we 
were, with the hope that half the men would live 



202 The Rough Riders 

through to the cool season. We did everything pos- 
sible to keep up the spirits of the men, but it was 
exceedingly difficult because there was nothing for 
them to do. They were weak and languid, and in 
the wet heat they had lost energy, so that it was not 
possible for them to indulge in sports or pastimes. 
There were exceptions; but the average man who 
went off to shoot guinea-hens or tried some vigorous 
game always felt much the worse for his exertions. 
Once or twice I took some of my comrades with me, 
and climbed up one or another of the surrounding 
mountains, but the result generally was that half 
of the party were down with some kind of sickness 
next day. It was impossible to take heavy exercise 
in the heat of the day; the evening usually saw a 
rain-storm which made the country a quagmire ; and 
in the early morning the drenching dew and wet, 
slimy soil made walking but little pleasure. Chap- 
lain Brown held service every Sunday under a low 
tree outside my tent; and we always had a con- 
gregation of a few score troopers, lying or sitting 
round, their strong hard faces turned toward the 
preacher. I let a few of the men visit Santiago, but 
the long walk in and out was very tiring, and, more- 
over, wise restrictions had been put as to either 
officers or men coming in. 

In any event there was very little to do in the 
quaint, dirty old Spanish city, though it was inter- 



The Return Home 203 

esting to go in once or twice, and wander through 
the narrow streets with their curious Httle shops and 
low houses of stained stucco, with elaborately 
wrought iron trellises to the windows, and curiously 
carved balconies ; or to sit in the central plaza where 
the cathedral was, and the clubs, and the Cafe 
Venus, and the low, bare, rambling building which 
was called the Governor's Palace. In this palace 
Wood had now been established as military gov- 
ernor, and Luna, and two or three of my other 
officers from the Mexican border, who knew Span- 
ish, were sent in to do duty under him. A great 
many of my men knew Spanish, and some of the 
New Mexicans were of Spanish origin, although 
they behaved precisely like the other members of the 
regiment. 

We should probably have spent the summer in 
our sick camps, losing half the men and hopelessly 
shattering the health of the remainder, if General 
Shafter had not summoned a council of officers, 
hoping by united action of a more or less public 
character to wake up the Washington authorities to 
the actual condition of things. As all the Spanish 
forces in the province of Santiago had surrendered, 
and as so-called immune regiments were coming to 
garrison the conquered territory, there was hterally 
not one thing of any kind whatsoever for the army 
to do, and no purpose to serve by keeping it at San- 



ao4 The Rough Riders 

tiago. We did not suppose that peace was at hand, 
being ignorant of the negotiations. We were anxi- 
ous to take part in the Porto Rico campaign, and 
would have been more than wilHng to suffer any 
amount of sickness, if by so doing we could get into 
action. But if we were not to take part in the Porto 
Rico campaign, then we knew it was absolutely in- 
dispensable to get our commands north immediately, 
if they were to be in trim for the great campaign 
against Havana, which would surely be the main 
event of the winter if peace were not declared in 
advance. 

Our army included the great majority of the 
regulars, and was, therefore, the flower of the 
American force. It was on every account impera- 
tive to keep it in good trim ; and to keep it in San- 
tiago meant its entirely purposeless destruction. As 
soon as the surrender was an accomplished fact, the 
taking away of the army to the north should have 
begun. 

Every officer, from the highest to the lowest, 
especially among the regulars, realized all of this, 
and about the last day of July, General Shafter 
called a conference, in the palace, of all the division 
and brigade commanders. By this time, owing to 
Wood's having been made Governor-General, I was 
in command of my brigade, so I went to the con- 
ference too, riding in with Generals Sumner and 



The Return Home 205 

Wheeler, who were the other representatives of the 
cavalry division. Besides the line officers all the 
chief medical officers were present at the conference. 
The telegrams from the Secretary stating the posi- 
tion of himself and the Surgeon-General were read, 
and then almost every line and medical officer pres- 
ent expressed his views in turn. They were almost 
all regulars and had been brought up to life-long 
habits of obedience without protest. They were 
ready to obey still, but they felt, quite rightly, that 
it was their duty to protest rather than to see the 
flower of the United States forces destroyed as the 
culminating act of a campaign in which the blunders 
that had been committed had been retrieved only by 
the valor and splendid soldierly qualities of the 
officers and enlisted men of the infantry and dis- 
mounted cavalry. There was not a dissenting voice ; 
for there could not be. There was but one side to 
the question. To talk of continually shifting camp 
or of moving up the mountains or of moving into 
the interior was idle, for not one of the plans could 
be carried out with our utterly insufficient transpor- 
tation, and at that season and in that climate they 
would merely have resulted in aggravating the sick- 
liness of the soldiers. It was deemed best to make 
some record of our opinion, in the shape of a letter 
or report, which would show that to keep the army 
in Santiago meant its absolute and objectless ruin, 



2o6 The Rough Riders 

and that it should at once be recalled. At first there 
was naturally some hesitation on the part of the 
regular officers to take the initiative, for their entire 
future career might be sacrificed. So I wrote a 
letter to General Shafter, reading over the rough 
draft to the various Generals and adopting their 
corrections. Before I had finished making these 
corrections it was determined that we should send 
a circular letter on behalf of all of us to General 
Shafter, and when I returned from presenting him 
mine, I found this circular letter already prepared 
and we all of us signed it. Both letters were made 
public. The result was immediate. Within three 
days the army was ordered to be ready to sail for 
home. 

As soon as it was known that we were to sail for 
home the spirits of the men changed for the better. 
In my regiment the officers began to plan methods 
of drilling the men on horseback, so as to fit them 
for use against the Spanish cavalry, if we should go 
against Havana in December. We had, all of us, 
eyed the captured Spanish cavalry with particular 
interest. The men were small, and the horses, 
though well trained and well built, were diminutive 
ponies, very much smaller than cow ponies. We 
were certain that if we ever got a chance to try 
shock tactics against them they would go down like 
nine-pins, provided only that our men could be 



The Return Home 207 

trained to charge in any kind of line, and we made 
up our minds to devote our time to this. Dis- 
mounted work with the rifle we already felt thor- 
oughly competent to perform. 

My time was still much occupied with looking 
after the health of my brigade, but the fact that we 
were going home, where I knew that their health 
would improve, lightened my mind, and I was able 
thoroughly to enjoy the beauty of the country, and 
even of the storms, which hitherto I had regarded 
purely as enemies. 

The surroundings of the city of Santiago are very 
grand. The circling mountains rise sheer and high. 
The plains are threaded by rapid winding brooks 
and are dotted here and there with quaint villages, 
curiously picturesque from their combining traces 
of an outworn old-world civilization with new and 
raw barbarism. The tall, graceful, feathery bam- 
boos rise by the water's edge, and elsewhere, even 
on the mountain-crests, where the soil is wet and 
rank enough; and the splendid royal palms and co- 
coanut palms tower high above the matted green 
jungle. 

Generally the thunder-storms came in the after- 
noon, but once I saw one at sunrise, driving down 
the high mountain valleys toward us. It was a very 
beautiful and almost terrible sight ; for the sun rose 
behind the storm, and shone through the gusty 



2o8 The Rough Riders 

rifts, lighting the mountain crests here and there, 
while the plain below lay shrouded in the lingering 
night. The angry, level rays edged the dark clouds 
with crimson, and turned the downpour into sheets 
of golden rain ; in the valleys the glimmering mists 
were tinted every wild hue; and the remotest heav- 
ens were lit with flaming glory. 

One day General Lawton, General Wood and I, 
with Ferguson and poor Tiffany, went down the 
bay to visit Morro Castle. The shores were beau- 
tiful, especially where there were groves of palms 
and of the scarlet-flower tree, and the castle itself, 
on a jutting headland, overlooking the sea and 
guarding the deep, narrow entrance to the bay, 
showed just what it was, the splendid relic of a 
vanished power and a vanished age. We wan- 
dered all through it, among the castellated battle- 
ments, and in the dungeons, where we found hide- 
ous rusty implements of torture; and looked at the 
guns, some modern and some very old. It had been 
little hurt by the bombardment of the ships. After- 
ward I had a swim, not trusting much to the shark 
stories. We passed by the sunken hulks of the Mer- 
rimac and the Reina Mercedes, lying just outside 
the main channel. Our own people had tried to 
sink the first and the Spaniards had tried to sink the 
second, so as to block the entrance. Neither at- 
tempt was successful. 



The Return Home 209 

On August 6th we were ordered to embark, and 
next morning we sailed on the transport Miami. 
General Wheeler was with us and a squadron of the 
Third Cavalry under Major Jackson. The General 
put the policing and management of the ship into 
my hands, and I had great aid from Captain Mc- 
Cormick, who had been acting with me as adjutant- 
general of the brigade. I had profited by my ex- 
perience coming down, and as Dr. Church knew his 
work well, although he was very sick, we kept the 
ship in such good sanitary condition that we were 
one of the very few organizations allowed to land 
at Montauk immediately upon our arrival. 

Soon after leaving port the captain of the ship 
notified me that his stokers and engineers were in- 
subordinate and drunken, due, he thought, to liquor 
which my men had given them. I at once started a 
search of the ship, explaining to the men that they 
could not keep the liquor; that if they surrendered 
whatever they had to me I should return it to them 
when we went ashore; and that meanwhile I would 
allow the sick to drink when they really needed it; 
but that if they did not give the liquor to me of their 
own accord I would throw it overboard. About 
seventy flasks and bottles were handed to me, and I 
found and threw overboard about twenty. This at 
once put a stop to all drunkenness. The stokers and 
engineers were sullen and half mutinous, so I sent a 



2IO The Rough Riders 

detail of my men down to watch them and see that 
they did their work under the orders of the chief 
engineer; and we reduced them to obedience in 
short order. I could easily have drawn from the 
regiment sufficient skilled men to fill every position 
in the entire ship's crew, from captain to stoker. 

We were very much crowded on board the ship, 
but rather better off than on the Yucatan, so far as 
the men were concerned, which was the important 
point. All the officers except General Wheeler slept 
in a kind of improvised shed, not unlike a chicken 
coop with bunks, on the aftermost part of the upper 
deck. The water was bad — some of it very bad. 
There was no ice. The canned beef proved practi- 
cally uneatable, as we knew would be the case. 
There were not enough vegetables. We did not 
have enough disinfectants, and there was no provi- 
sion whatever for a hospital or for isolating the sick ; 
we simply put them on one portion of one deck. If, 
as so many of the high authorities had insisted, 
there had really been a yellow-fever epidemic, and if 
it had broken out on shipboard, the condition would 
have been frightful; but there was no yellow-fever 
epidemic. Three of our men had been kept behind 
as suspects, all three suffered simply from malarial 
fever. One of them, Lutz, a particularly good sol- 
dier, died; another, who was simply a malingerer 
and had nothing the matter with him whatever, of 



The Return Home 211 

course recovered; the third was Tiffany, who, I be- 
lieve, would have lived had we been allowed to take 
him with us, but who was sent home later and died 
soon after landing. 

I was very anxious to keep the men amused, 
and as the quarters were so crowded that it was 
out of the question for them to have any physical 
exercise, I did not interfere with their playing 
games of chance so long as no disorder followed. 
On shore this was not allowed; but in the particu- 
lar emergency which we were meeting, the loss 
of a month's salary was as nothing compared to 
keeping the men thoroughly interested and diverted. 

By care and diligence we succeeded in preventing 
any serious sickness. One man died, however. He 
had been suffering from dysentery ever since we 
landed, owing purely to his own fault, for on the 
very first night ashore he obtained a lot of fiery 
liquor from some of the Cubans, got very drunk, and 
had to march next day through the hot sun before he 
was entirely sober. He never recovered, and was 
useless from that time on. On board ship he died, 
and we gave him sea burial. Wrapped in a ham- 
mock, he was placed opposite a port, and the Ameri- 
can flag thrown over him. The engine was stilled, 
and the great ship rocked on the waves unshaken by 
the screw, while the war-worn troopers clustered 
around with bare heads, to listen to Chaplain Brown 



212 The Rough Riders 

read the funeral service, and to the band of the 
Third Cavahy as it played the funeral dirge. Then 
the port was knocked free, the flag withdrawn, and 
the shotted hammock plunged heavily over the side, 
rushing down through the dark water to lie, till the 
Judgment Day, in the ooze that holds the timbers 
of so many gallant ships, and the bones of so many 
fearless adventurers. 

We were favored by good weather during our 
nine days' voyage, and much of the time when there 
was little to do we simply sat together and talked, 
each man contributing from the fund of his own ex- 
periences. Voyages around Cape Horn, yacht races 
for the America's cup, experiences on foot-ball 
teams which are famous in the annals of college 
sport; more serious feats of desperate prowess in 
Indian fighting and in breaking up gangs of white 
outlaws ; adventures in hunting big game, in break- 
ing wild horses, in tending great herds of cattle, 
and in wandering winter and summer among the 
mountains and across the lonely plains — the men 
who told the tales could draw upon countless mem- 
ories such as these of the things they had done and 
the things they had seen others do. Sometimes 
General Wheeler joined us and told us about the 
great war, compared with which ours was such a 
small war — far-reaching in their importance though 
its effects were destined to be. When we had be- 



The Return Home 213 

come convinced that we would escape an epidemic 
of sickness the homeward voyage became very 
pleasant. 

On the eve of leaving Santiago I had received 
from Mr. Laffan of the Sun a cable with the single 
word "Peace," and we speculated much on this, as 
the clumsy transport steamed slowly northward 
across the trade wind and then into the Gulf Stream. 
At last we sighted the low, sandy blufifs of the Long 
Island coast, and late on the afternoon of the 14th 
we steamed through the still waters of the Sound 
and cast anchor off Montauk. A gunboat of the 
Mosquito fleet came out to greet us and to inform us 
that peace negotiations had begun. 

Next morning we were marched on shore. Many 
of the men were very sick indeed. Of the three or 
four who had been closest to me among the enlisted 
men, Color-Sergeant Wright was the only one in 
good health. Henry Bardshar was a wreck, literal- 
ly at death's door. I was myself in first-class health, 
all the better for having lost twenty pounds. Faith- 
ful Marshall, my colored body-servant, was so sick 
as to be nearly helpless. 

Bob Wrenn nearly died. He had joined us very 
late and we could not get him a Krag carbine ; so I 
had given him my Winchester, which carried the 
government cartridge; and when he was mustered 
out he carried it home in triumph, to the envy of his 



214 The Rough Riders 

fellows, who themselves had to surrender their be- 
loved rifles. 

For the first few days there was great confusion 
and some want even after we got to Montauk. The 
men in hospitals suffered from lack of almost every- 
thing, even cots. But after these few days we were 
very well cared for and had abundance of all we 
needed, except that on several occasions there was 
a shortage of food for the horses, which I should 
have regarded as even more serious than a shortage 
for the men, had it not been that we were about to 
be disbanded. The men lived high, with milk, eggs, 
oranges, and any amount of tobacco, the lack of 
which during portions of the Cuban campaign had 
been felt as seriously as any lack of food. One of 
the distressing features of the malarial fever which 
had been ravaging the troops was that it was recur- 
rent and persistent. Some of my men died after 
reaching home, and many were very sick. We owed 
much to the kindness not only of the New York 
hospitals and the Red Cross and kindred societies, 
but of individuals, notably Mr. Bayard Cutting and 
Mrs. Armitage, who took many of our men to their 
beautiful Long Island homes. 

On the whole, however, the month we spent at 
Montauk before we disbanded was very pleasant. 
It was good to meet the rest of the regiment. They 
aTI felt dreadfully at not having been in Cuba. It 



The Return Home 215 

was a sore trial to men who had given up much to 
go to the war, and who rebelled at nothing in the 
way of hardship or suffering, but who did bitterly 
feel the fact that their sacrifices seemed to have been 
useless. Of course those who stayed had done their 
duty precisely as did those who went, for the ques- 
tion of glory was not to be considered in comparison 
to the faithful performance of whatever was or- 
dered ; and no distinction of any kind was allowed in 
the regiment between those whose good fortune it 
had been to go and those whose harder fate it had 
been to remain. Nevertheless the latter could not be 
entirely comforted. 

The regiment had three mascots; the two most 
characteristic — a young mountain lion brought by 
the Arizona troops, and a war eagle brought by 
the New Mexicans — we had been forced to leave be- 
hind in Tampa. The third, a rather disreputable but 
exceedingly knowing little dog, named Cuba, had 
accompanied us through all the vicissitudes of the 
campaign. The mountain lion, Josephine, possessed 
an infernal temper; whereas both Cuba and the 
eagle, which have been named in my honor, were 
extremely good-humored. Josephine was kept tied 
up. She sometimes escaped. One cool night in early 
September she wandered off and, entering the tent 
of a Third Cavalry man, got into bed with him; 
whereupon he fled into the darkness with yells, 



2i6 The Rough Riders 

much more unnerved than he would have been by 
the arrival of any number of Spaniards. The eagle 
was let loose and not only walked at will up and 
down the company streets, but also at times flew 
wherever he wished. He was a young bird, having 
been taken out of his nest when a fledgling. Jose- 
phine hated him and was always trying to make a 
meal of him, especially when we endeavored to take 
their photographs together. The eagle, though 
good-natured, was an entirely competent individual 
and ready at any moment to beat Josephine off. 
Cuba was also oppressed at times by Josephine, and 
was of course no match for her, but was frequently 
able to overawe by simple decision of character. 

In addition to the animal mascots, we had two 
or three small boys who had also been adopted by 
the regiment. One, from Tennessee, was named 
Dabney Royster. When we embarked at Tampa he 
smuggled himself on board the transport with a 22- 
calibre rifle and three boxes of cartridges, and wept 
bitterly when sent ashore. The squadron which re- 
mained behind adopted him, got him a little Rough 
Rider's uniform, and made him practically one of 
the regiment. 

The men who had remained at Tampa, like our- 
selves, had suffered much from fever, and the horses 
were in bad shape. So many of the men were sick 
that none of the regiments began to drill for some 



The Return Home 217 

time after reaching Montauk, There was a great 
deal of paper-work to be done; but as I still had 
charge of the brigade only a little of it fell on my 
shoulders. Of this I was sincerely glad, for I 
knew as little of the paper-work as my men had 
originally known of drill. We had all of us learned 
how to fight and march ; but the exact limits of our 
rights and duties in other respects were not very 
clearly defined in our minds; and as for myself, as 
I had not had the time to learn exactly what they 
were, I had assumed a large authority in giving re- 
wards and punishments. In particular I had looked 
on the court-martials much as Peter Bell looked on 
primroses — they were courts-martial and nothing 
more, whether resting on the authority of a lieu- 
tenant-colonel or of a major-general. The muster- 
ing-out officer, a thorough soldier, found to his 
horror that I had used the widest discretion both 
in imposing heavy sentences which I had no power 
to impose on men who shirked their duties, and, 
where men atoned for misconduct by marked gal- 
lantry, in blandly remitting sentences approved by 
my chief of division. However, I had done sub- 
stantial, even though somewhat rude and irregular, 
justice — and no harm could result, as we were just 
about to be mustered out. 

My chief duties were to see that the camps of the 
three regiments were thoroughly policed and kept 

Vol. XI.— J 



21 8 The Rough Riders 

in first-class sanitary condition. This took up some 
time, of course, and there were other matters in 
connection with the mustering out which had to be 
attended to; but I could always get two or three 
hours a day free from work. Then I would summon 
a number of the officers, Kane, Greenway, Good- 
rich, Church, Ferguson, Mcllhenny, Frantz, Ballard 
and others, and we would gallop down to the beach 
and bathe in the surf, or else go for long rides over 
the beautiful rolling plains, thickly studded with 
pools which were white with water-lilies. Some- 
times I went off alone with my orderly, young 
Gordon Johnston, one of the best men in the regi- 
ment; he was a nephew of the Governor of Ala- 
bama, and when at Princeton had played on the 
eleven. We had plenty of horses, and these rides 
were most enjoyable. Galloping over the open, roll- 
ing country, through the cool fall evenings, made us 
feel as if we were out on the great Western plains 
and might at any moment start deer from the brush, 
or see antelope stand and gaze, far away, or rouse a 
band of mighty elk and hear their horns clatter as 
they fled. 

An old friend. Baron von Sternburg, of the Ger- 
man Embassy, spent a week in camp with me. He 
had served, when only seventeen, in the Franco- 
Prussian War as a hussar, and was a noted sharp- 
shooter — being "the little baron" who is the hero of 



The Return Home 219 

Archibald Forbes's true story of "The Pig-dog." 
He and I had for years talked over the possibilities 
of just such a regiment as the one I was command- 
ing, and he was greatly interested in it. Indeed I 
had vainly sought permission from the German am- 
bassador to take him with the regiment to Santiago. 
One Sunday before the regiment disbanded I 
supplemented Chaplain Brown's address to the men 
by a short sermon of a rather hortatory character. 
I told them how proud I was of them, but warned 
them not to think that they could now go back and 
rest on their laurels, bidding them remember that 
though for ten days or so the world would be will- 
ing to treat them as heroes, yet after that time they 
would find they had to get down to hard work just 
like everyone else, unless they were willing to be 
regarded as worthless do-nothings. They took the 
sermon in good part, and I hope that some of them 
profited by it. At any rate, they repaid me by a 
very much more tangible expression of affection. 
One afternoon, to my genuine surprise, I was asked 
out of my tent by Lieutenant-Colonel Brodie (the 
gallant old boy had rejoined us), and found the 
whole regiment formed in hollow square, with the 
officers and color-sergeant in the middle. When 
I went in, one of the troopers came forward and on 
behalf of the regiment presented me with Reming- 
ton's fine bronze, "The Bronco-buster." There 



220 The Rough Riders 

could have been no more appropriate gift from such 
a regiment, and I was not only pleased with it, but 
very deeply touched with the feeling which made 
them join in giving it. Afterward they all filed past 
and I shook the hand of each to say good-by. 

Most of them looked upon the bronze with the 
critical eyes of professionals. I doubt if there was 
any regiment in the world which contained so large 
a number of men able to ride the wildest and most 
dangerous horses. One day while at Montauk Point 
some of the troopers of the Third Cavalry were 
getting ready for mounted drill when one of their 
horses escaped, having thrown his rider. This at- 
tracted the attention of some of our men and they 
strolled around to see the trooper remount. He 
was instantly thrown again, the horse, a huge, vic- 
ious sorrel, being one of the worst buckers I ever 
saw ; and none of his comrades were willing to ride 
the animal. Our men, of course, jeered and mocked 
at them, and in response were dared to ride the 
horse themselves. The challenge was instantly ac- 
cepted, the only question being as to which of a 
dozen noted bronco-busters who were in the ranks 
should undertake the task. THey finally settled on 
a man named Darnell. It was agreeH that the 
experiment should take place next day when the 
horse would be fresh, and accordingly next day the 
majority of both regiments turned out on a big open 



The Return Home 221 

flat in front of my tent — brigade head-quarters. The 
result was that after as fine a bit of rough riding as 
one would care to see, in which one scarcely knew 
whether most to wonder at the extraordinary vi- 
ciousness and agile strength of the horse or at the 
horsemanship and courage of the rider, Darnell 
came off victorious, his seat never having been 
shaken. After this almost every day we had ex- 
hibitions of bronco-busting, in which all the crack 
riders of the regiment vied with one another, riding 
not only all of our own bad horses but any horse 
which was deemed bad in any of the other regi- 
ments. Darnell, McGinty, Wood, Smoky Moore, 
and a score of others took part in these exhibitions, 
which included not merely feats in mastering vicious 
horses, but also feats of broken horses which the 
riders had trained to lie down at command, and 
upon which they could mount while at full speed. 
Toward the end of the time we also had mounted 
drill on two or three occasions ; and when the Presi- 
dent visited the camp we turned out mounted to re- 
ceive him as did the rest of the cavalry. The last 
night before we were mustered out was spent in 
noisy, but entirely harmless hilarity, which I ig- 
nored. Every form of celebration took place in the 
ranks. A former Populist candidate for Attorney- 
General in Colorado delivered a fervent oration in 
favor of free silver; a number of the college boys 



222 The Rough Riders 

sang; but most of the men gave vent to their feel- 
ings by improvised dances. In these the Indians 
took the lead, pure bloods and half-breeds alike, the 
cowboys and miners cheerfully joining in and form- 
ing part of the howling, grunting rings that went 
bounding around the great fires they had kindled. 

Next morning Sergeant Wright took down the col- 
ors, and Sergeant Guitilias the standard, for the last 
time; the horses, the rifles, and the rest of the regi- 
mental property had been turned in ; officers and men 
shook hands and said good-by to one another, and 
then they scattered to their homes in the North and 
the South, the few going back to the great cities of 
the East, the many turning again toward the plains, 
the mountains, and the deserts of the West and the 
strange Southwest. This was on September 15th, 
the day which marked the close of the four months' 
life of a regiment of as gallant fighters as ever wore 
the United States uniform. 

The regiment was a wholly exceptional volunteer 
organization, and its career cannot be taken as in 
any way a justification for the belief that the aver- 
age volunteer regiment approaches the average regu- 
lar regiment in point of efficiency until it has had 
many months of active service. In the first place, 
though the regular regiments may differ markedly 
among themselves, yet the range of variation among 



The Return Home 223 

them is nothing like so wide as that among volunteer 
regiments, where at first there is no common stan- 
dard at all ; the very best being, perhaps, up to the 
level of the regulars (as has recently been shown at 
Manila), while the very worst are no better than 
mobs, and the great bulk come in between.* The 
average regular regiment is superior to the average 
volunteer regiment in the physique of the enlisted 
men, who have been very carefully selected, who 
have been trained to life in the open, and who know 
how to cook and take care of themselves generally. 

Now, in all these respects, and in others like them, 
the Rough Riders were the equals of the regulars. 
They were hardy, self-reliant, accustomed to shift 
for themselves in the open under very adverse cir- 
cumstances. The two all-important qualifications 
for a cavalryman are riding and shooting — the mod- 
ern cavalryman being so often used dismounted, as 
an infantryman. The average recruit requires a 
couple of years before he becomes proficient in horse- 
manship and marksmanship; but my men were al- 
ready good shots and first-class riders when they 
came into the regiment. The difference as regards 
officers and non-commissioned officers, between reg- 
ulars and volunteers, is usually very great; but in 
my regiment (keeping in view the material we had 

* For sound common-sense about the volunteers see Par- 
ker's excellent little book, "The Gatlings at Santiago." 



224 The Rough Riders 

to handle), it was easy to develop non-commissioned 
officers out of men who had been round-up foremen, 
ranch foremen, mining bosses, and the like. These 
men were intelligent and resolute; they knew they 
had a great deal to learn, and they set to work to 
learn it ; while they v/ere already accustomed to man- 
aging considerable interests, to obeying orders, and 
to taking care of others as well as themselves. 

As for the officers, the great point in our favor 
was the anxiety they showed to learn from those 
among their number who, like Capron, had already 
served in the regular army ; and the fact that we had 
chosen a regular army man as Colonel. If a volun- 
teer organization consists of good material, and is 
eager to learn, it can readily do so if it has one or 
two first-class regular officers to teach it More- 
over, most of our captains and lieutenants were men 
who had seen much of wild life, who were accus- 
tomed to handling and commanding other men, and 
who had usually already been under fire as sheriffs, 
marshals, and the like. As for the second in com- 
mand, myself, I had served three years as captain 
in the National Guard ; I had been deputy sheriff in 
the cow country, where the position was not a sine- 
cure ; I was accustomed to big game hunting and to 
work on a cow ranch, so that I was thoroughly fa- 
miliar with the use both of horse and rifle, and knew 
how to handle cowboys, hunters, and miners ; finally, 



The Return Home 225 

I had studied much in the Hterature of war, and espe- 
cially the literature of the great modern wars, like 
our own Civil War, the Franco-German War, the 
Turco-Russian War; and I was especially familiar 
with the deeds, the successes and failures alike, of 
the frontier horse riflemen who had fought at King's 
Mountain and the Thames, and on the Mexican bor- 
der. Finally, and most important of all, officers and 
men alike were eager for fighting, and resolute to 
do well and behave properly, to encounter hardship 
and privation, and the irksome monotony of camp 
routine, without grumbling or complaining; they 
had counted the cost before they went in, and were 
delighted to pay the penalties inevitably attendant 
upon the career of a fighting regiment; and from 
the moment when the regiment began to gather, the 
higher officers kept instilling into those under them 
the spirit of eagerness for action and of stern deter- 
mination to grasp at death rather than forfeit honor. 
The self-reliant spirit of the men was well shown 
after they left the regiment. Of course, there were 
a few weaklings among them; and there were oth- 
ers, entirely brave and normally self-sufficient, who, 
from wounds or fevers, were so reduced that they 
had to apply for aid — or at least, who deserved aid, 
even though they often could only be persuaded 
with the greatest difficulty to accept it. The widows 
and orphans had to be taken care of. There were 



226 The Rough Riders 

a few light-hearted individuals, who were entirely 
ready to fight in time of war, but in time of peace 
felt that somebody ought to take care of them ; and 
there were others who, never having seen any aggre- 
gation of buildings larger than an ordinary cow- 
town, fell a victim to the fascinations of New York, 
But, as a whole, they scattered out to their homes on 
the disbandment of the regiment ; gaunter than when 
they had enlisted, sometimes weakened by fever or 
wounds, but just as full as ever of sullen, sturdy ca- 
pacity for self-help; scorning to ask for aid, save 
what was entirely legitimate in the way of one com- 
rade giving help to another, A number of the ex- 
amining surgeons, at the muster-out, spoke to me 
with admiration of the contrast offered by our regi- 
ment to so many others, in the fact that our men al- 
ways belittled their own bodily injuries and suffer- 
ings; so that whereas the surgeons ordinarily had 
to be on the lookout lest a man who was not really 
disabled should claim to be so, in our case they had 
to adopt exactly the opposite attitude and guard the 
future interests of the men, by insisting upon putting 
upon their certificates of discharge whatever disease 
they had contracted or wound they had received in line 
of duty. Major J, H. Calef, who had more than any 
other one man to do with seeing to the proper dis- 
charge papers of our men, and who took a most gen- 
erous interest in them, wrote me as follows : "I also 



The Return Home 227 

wish to bring to your notice the fortitude displayed 
by the men of your regiment, who have come before 
me to be mustered out of service, in making their 
personal declarations as to their physical conditions. 
Men who bore on their faces and in their forms the 
traces of long days of illness, indicating wrecked 
constitutions, declared that nothing was the matter 
with them, at the same time disclaiming any inten- 
tion of applying for a pension. It was exceptionally 
heroic." 

When we were mustered out, many of the men 
had lost their jobs, and were too weak to go to 
work at once, while there were helpless dependants 
of the dead to care for. Certain of my friends, 
August Belmont, Stanley and Richard Mortimer, 
Major Austin Wadsworth — himself fresh from the 
Manila campaign — Belmont Tiffany, and others, 
gave me sums of money to be used for helping these 
men. In some instances, by the exercise of a good 
deal of tact and by treating the gift as a memorial 
of poor young Lieutenant Tiffany, we got the men 
to accept something; and, of course, there were a 
number who, quite rightly, made no difficulty about 
accepting. But most of the men would accept no 
help whatever. In the first chapter, I spoke of a 
lady, a teacher in an academy in the Indian Terri- 
tory, three or four of whose pupils had come into 
my regiment, and who had sent with them a letter 



228 The Rough Riders 

of introduction to me. When the regiment dis- 
banded, I wrote to her to ask if she could not use a 
Httle money among the Rough Riders, white, In- 
dian, and half-breed, that she might personally know. 
I did not hear from her for some time, and then she 
wrote as follows : 

"Muscogee, Ind. Ter., 

December 19, 1898. 

";NfY Dear Colonel Roosevelt: I did not at 
once reply to your letter of September 23d, because 
I waited for a time to see if there should be need 
among any of our Rough Riders of the money you 
so kindly offered. Some of the boys are poor, and 
in one or two cases they seemed to me really needy, 
but they all said no. More than once I saw the tears 
come to their eyes, at thought of your care for them, 
as I told them of your letter. Did you hear any 
echoes of our Indian war-whoops over your election ? 
They were pretty loud. I was particularly exultant, 
because my father was a New Yorker and I was 
educated in New York, even if I was born here. So 
far as I can learn, the boys are taking up the dropped 
threads of their lives, as though they had never been 
away. Our two Rough Rider students, Meagher 
and Gilmore, are doing well in their college work. 

"I am sorry to tell you of the death of one of your 
most devoted troopers, Bert Holderman, who was 
here serving on the Grand Jury. He was stricken 
with meningitis in the jury-room, and died after 
three days of delirium. His father, who was twice 



The Return Home 229 

wounded, four times taken prisoner, and fought in 
thirty-two battles of the Civil War, now old and 
feeble, survives him, and it was indeed pathetic to 
see his grief. Bert's mother, who is a Cherokee, 
was raised in my grandfather's family. The words 
of commendation which you wrote upon Bert's dis- 
charge are the greatest comfort to his friends. They 
wanted you to know of his death, because he loved 
you so. 

"I am planning to entertain all the Rough Riders 
in this vicinity some evening during my holiday va- 
cation. I mean to have no other guests, but only 
give them an opportunity for reminiscences. I re- 
gret that Bert's death makes one less. I had hoped 
to have them sooner, but our struggling young col- 
lege salaries are necessarily small and duties ardu- 
ous. I make a home for my widowed mother and 
an adopted Indian daughter, who is in school ; and as 
I do the cooking for a family of five, I have found 
it impossible to do many things I would like to. 

"Pardon me for burdening you with these details, 
but I suppose I am like your boys, who say, 'The 
Colonel was always as ready to listen to a private 
as to a major-general.' 

"Wishing you and yours the very best gifts the 
season can bring, I am, 

"Very truly yours, 

"Alice M. Robertson.'' 

Is it any wonder that I loved my regiment ? 



APPEN DICES 



APPENDIX A 

MUSTER-OUT ROLL 

[Owing to the circumstances of the regiment's 
service, the paperwork was very difficult to perform. 
This muster-out roll is very defective in certain 
points, notably in the enumeration of the wounded 
who had been able to return to duty. Some of the 
dead are also undoubtedly passed over. Thus I have 
put in Race Smith, Sanders, and Tiffany as dead, 
correcting the rolls; but there are doubtless a num- 
ber of similar corrections which should be made but 
have not been, as the regiment is now scattered far 
and wide. I have also corrected the record for the 
wounded men in one or two places where I happen 
to remember it; but there are a number of the 
wounded, especially the slightly wounded, who are 
not down at all.] 



(233) 



234 The Rough Riders 

FIELD, STAFF, AND BAND 

Theodore Roosevelt. .Colonel New York, N. Y. 

Alexander O. Brodie.Lieut.-Colonel. . . Prescott, Ariz. 

Henry B. Hersey . . . . Major Santa Fe, N. M. 

George M. Dunn. . . . Major Denver, Col. 

Micah J. Jenkins. . . . Major Youngs Is., S. C. 

Henry A. Brown Chaplain Prescott, Ariz. 

Maxwell Keyes ist Lt. & Adjt. . .San Antonio, Tex. 

Sherrard Coleman. .. ist Lt. & Q. M. Santa Fe, N. M. 

Ernest Seeker Sergt.-Major Los Angeles, Cal. 

Matthew Douthett... Q.-M. Sergeant. Denver, Col. 

Clay Piatt Cf. Trumpeter. . San Antonio, Tex. 

Joseph F. Kansky. . . Sad. Sergeant. . . Tacoma, Wash. 
Leonard Wood Colonel Cape Cod, Mass. 

Promoted, July 9, 1898, to Brig.-Gea. of U. S. Vols. 

Thomas W. Hall ist Lieut. & Adjt. 

Tendered his resignation as ist Lieut, and Adjt., which took effect 
Aug. I, 1898, in compliance with S. O. No. 175, O. G. O., dated 
July 29, 1898. 

Jacob Schwaizer ist Lt. & Q.-M. .El Reno, O. T. 

Resigned his commission as ist Lieut, Aug. 4, 1898. Resignation 
took effect Sept. 7, 1898. 
Joseph A. Carr Sergt.-Major Washington, D. C. 

Discharged at San Antonio, Texas, by way of favor to enable him 
to accept a commission as ist Lieut, in the Regiment, May 19, 1898. 

Christian Madsen R. Q.-M. Sergt. .El Reno, O. T. 

Discharged on Surgeon's certificate of disability at Camp Wikoff, L. I., 
Aug. 26, 1898. 

Alfred E. Lewis R. Q.-M. Sergt. , 

Deserted from Camp at San Antonio, Tex., on or about May 5, 1898. 

Ernest Haskell Cadet West Point. 

Acted with regiment as second lieutenant. Dangerously wounded by 
Mauser bullet, July ist. 

THE HOSPITAL CORPS 

Henry La Motte Major Williamsb'g, Mass. 

James A. Massie ist Lieutenant. . .Santa Fe, N. M. 

* James R. Church. . .ist Lieutenant. . .Washington, D. C. 

James B. Brady Steward Santa Fe, N. M. 

Herbert J. Rankin . . . Steward Las Vegas, N. M. 

Charles A. Wilson. . .Steward Col. Springs, Col. 

John R. Rawdin Private 

* Acted as Regimental Surgeon during most of the campaign. 



Muster-Out Roll 2;^^ 

TROOP A 
Captain Frank Frantz 

Frank Frantz Captain Prescott, Ariz. 

John C. Greenway. . . ist Lieutenant. . .Hot Springs, Ark. 

Joshua D. Carter 2d Lieutenant. . . Prescott, Ariz. 

Wm. W. Greenwood, ist Sergeant Prescott, Ariz. 

Shot in left foot and leg in battle, July i, 1898. Engaged in battles 
of Las Guasimas, June 24th; San Juan, July ist. 

James T. Greenley. . . Sergeant Prescott, Ariz. 

Wounded in leg, July i, 1898. Engaged in battles of Las Guasimas, 
June 24th; San Juan, July ist; and siege of Santiago following. 

King C. Henley Q-M. Sergeant. Winslow, Ariz. 

Henry W. Nash Sergeant Young, Ariz. 

Samuel H. Rhodes. . . Sergeant Tonto Basin, Ariz. 

Robert Brown Sergeant Prescott, Ariz. 

Charles E. McGarr. . .Sergeant Prescott, Ariz. 

Carl Holtzschue Sergeant Prescott, Ariz. 

George L. Bugbee. . . .Corporal Lordsburg, N. M. 

Harry G. White Corporal Richenbar, Ariz. 

Absent from July 2, 1898, in Governor's Island, N. Y., Hospital, on 
account of wound in leg, received on July 2, 1898. Engaged in 
battles of Las Guasimas, June 24, 1898; San Juan, July i, 1898. 

Cade C. Jackson Corporal Flagstaff, Ariz. 

Harry B. Fox Corporal Jerome, Ariz. 

William Cranfurd. . . Corporal San Antonio, Tex. 

George A. McCarter. Corporal Safford, Ariz. 

Rufus H. Marine Corporal Flagstaff, Ariz. 

John D. Honeyman. . .Corporal San Antonio, Tex. 

Emilio Cassi Trumpeter Jerome, Ariz. 

Wounded in hand on July 2, 1898. 

Frank Harner Trumpeter Preston, Ariz. 

Thomas Hamilton. . . .Blacksmith Jerome, Ariz. 

Wallace B. Willard. . Farrier Cottonwood, Ariz. 

Forest Whitney Saddler Richenbar, Ariz. 

John H. Waller Wagoner Prescott, Ariz. 

Wounded in left arm in battle of July i, 1898. Engaged in Las 
Guasimas, June 24, 1898; San Juan, July i, 1898; and siege of 
Santiago following. 



236 



The Rough Riders 



TROOPERS 



Adams, Ralph R., Yonkers, 

N. Y. 
Allen, George L., Prescott, 

Ariz. 
Azbill, John, St. John's, 

Ariz. 
Azbill, William, St. John's, 

Ariz. 



Griffen, Walter W., Globe, 
Ariz. 

Glover, William H., Lib- 
erty, Tex. 

Hawes, George P., Jr., Rich- 
mond, Va. 

Haymon, Edward G. B., 
Chicago, 111. 



Arnold, Henry N., New Hoffman, Fred., Pueblo, 

York City. Col. 

Barnard, John C, New Hodgdon, Charles E., Pres- 

York City. cott, Ariz. 
Bartoo, Nelson E., Win- Hogan, Daniel L., Flag- 
slow, Ariz. staff, Ariz. 
Belknap, Prescott H., Bbs- Howard, John L., St. Louis, 

ton, Brookline, Mass. Mo. 

Brauer, Lee W., Richmond, Hubbell, John D., Boston, 

Va. Mass. 

Bugbee, Fred. W., Lords- Huffman, Lawrence E., Las 

burg, N. M. Cruces, Mex. 

Wounded in head in battle of Jackson, Charles B., Pres- 

San Juan, July i, 1898. Slight. cott, Ariz. 



Mauser rifle. 

Bull, Charles C, San Fran- 
cisco, Cal. 

Bulzing, William, Santa Fe, 
N. M. 

Burke, Edward F., Orange, 
N.J. 



Wounded in neck at battle of 
San Juan, July i, 1898. Na- 
ture of injury slight. Mauser 
rifle. 

Johnson, John W., King- 
man, Ariz. 

Lefors, Jefferson D., Pres- 
cott, Ariz. 



Bardshar, Henry P., Pres- Lewis, William F., Con- 

cott, Ariz. gress, Ariz. 

Church, Leroy B., Ithaca, Larned, William A., Sum- 
Mich, mit, N. J. 

Curtis, Harry A., Boston, Le Roy, Arthur M., Pres- 

Mass. cott, Ariz. 

Freeman, Thomas L., Thur- May, James A., Safford, 

ber, Tex. Ariz. 



Muster-Out Roll 



237 



McCarty, Frank, Flagstaff, 
Ariz. 

Mills, Charles E., Cedar 
Rapids, la. 

Murchie, Guy, Calais, Me. 

Osborne, George, Bungen- 
dera, N. S. W., Aus- 
tralia. 

O'Brien, Edward, Jerome, 
Ariz. 

Wounded in head, by shrapnel, 
morning of July 2, 1898. 

Page, William, Richenbar, 

Ariz. 
Perry, Charles B., Perry's 

Landing, Tex. 

Shot in head, July 2, 1898. Se- 
vere. 

Paxton, Frank, Safford, 
Ariz. 

Pearsall, Paul S., New 
York, N. Y. 

Pettit, Louis P., Flagstaff, 
Ariz. 

Philip, Hoffman, Washing- 
ton, D. C. 

Pierce, Harry B., Central 
City, N. M. 

Raudebaugh, James D,, 
Flagstaff, Ariz. 

Rapp, Adolph, San An- 
tonio, Tex. 

Sells, Henry, Flagstaff, 
Ariz. 

Sellers, Henry J., Williams, 
Ariz. 



Sewall, Henry F., New 
York, N. Y. 

Shaw, James A., Prescott, 
Ariz. 

Shanks, Lee P., Paducah, 
Ky. 

Stark, Wallace J., Safford, 
Ariz. 

Sullivan, Patrick J., Pres- 
cott, Ariz. 

Thomas, Rufus K., Boston, 
Mass. 

Thomson, Joseph F., Jr., 
Washington, D. C. 

Tuttle, Arthur L., Safford, 
Ariz. 

Van Siclen, Frank, Safford, 
Ariz. 

Wager, Oscar G., Jerome, 
Ariz. 

Wallace, Walter D., Flag- 
staff, Ariz. 

Wallace, William F., Flag- 
staff, Ariz. 

Wounded in neck in battle of 
San Juan, July i, 1898. 

Wayland, Thomas J., Wil- 
liams, Ariz. 

Webb, Adelbert B., Safford, 
Ariz. 

Weil, Henry J., Kingman, 
Ariz. 

Wilson, Jerome, Chloride, 
Ariz. 

Wrenn, Robert D., Chicago, 
111. 



238 The Rough Riders 



DISCHARGED 
Garret, Samuel H Prescott, Ariz. 

Honorably discharged the service by order of A. G. O. Special Order 
No. 14, Aug. 24, 1898. 

Greenwald, Sam Prescott, Ariz. 

Discharged by authority of Secretary of War, at Camp Wikoff, Aug. 
31, 1898. 

McCormick, Willis Salt Lake City, 

Utah 

Honorably discharged the service, Aug. z^t 1898. By order Secre- 
tary of War. 

KILLED IN ACTION 
O'Neill, William O. .Captain Prescott, Ariz. 

Engaged and killed in battle of San Juan, July i, 1898, by gunshot 
wound in the head. 

Doherty, George H . . Corporal Jerome, Ariz. 

Engaged and killed in battle of Las Guasimas, June 24, 1898, by bul- 
let wound in the head. 

Boyle, James Private Prescott, Ariz. 

Engaged in and mortally wounded at battle of San Juan, July i, 
1898; shot through neck and body; died July 2, 1898. 

Champlin, Fred E. . . Private Flagstaff, Ariz. 

Engaged in battle of Las Guasimas, June 24, 1898, and battle of San 
Juan, July i, 1898, where he was mortally wounded. Died, July 
2, 1898; shot i« leg and foot by shrapnel and arm torn off by shell. 
Left thigh and hand. 

Liggett, Edward Private Jerome, Ariz, 

Engaged and killed in battle of Las Guasimas, June 24, 1898; shot 
through the body. 

Reynolds, Lewis Private Kingman, Ariz. 

Engaged in battle of Las Guasimas, June 24, 1898, and San Juan, 
July I, 1898. Killed on July i, 1898; shot through the stomach. 

DIED OF DISEASE 
Hollister, Stanley. . . Private Santa Barbara, Cal. 

Wounded in left thigh in battle, July 2, 1898; severe. Died of typhoid 
fever in general U. S. Hospital, Fortress Monroe, Va., Aug. 17, 
1898. 

Wallace, Alexander H.Private Pasadena, Cal. 

Died of typhoid fever at St. Peter's Hospital, Brooklyn, Aug. 31, 
1898. 

Walsh, George Private San Francisco, Cal. 

Died at sea, aboard S. S. Miami, Aug. 11, 1898, of chronic dysentery; 
buried at sea, Aug. 12, 1898. 



Muster-Out Roll 239 

SUICIDE 

De Vol, Harry P San Antonio, Tex. 

While in Guard-House, Camp Wikoff, died of self-inflicted wound in 
the head. 

DESERTER 
Jackson, John W. . . . Private Jerome, Ariz. 

Deserted the service at Tampa, Fla., July 7, 1898. 

TROOP B 
Captain James H. McClintock 
James H.McCIintock. Captain Phoenix, Ariz. 

Wounded at battle of Las Guasunas, June 24, 1898. Wounded in 
left ankle. 

George B. Wilcox. . .ist Lieutenant. . .Prescott, Ariz. 
Thomas H. Rymning.ad Lieutenant. . . Tucson, Ariz. 

WiUiam A. Davidson ist Sergeant 'Phoenix, Ariz. 

Stephen A. Pate Q.-M. Sergeant. .Tucson, Ariz. 

Wounded in right lung before Santiago de Cuba, July i, 1898. 

Elmer Hawley Sergeant Phoenix, Ariz. 

John E. Campbell. . . Sergeant Phoenix, Ariz. 

Charles H. Utling. . . Sergeant Phoenix, Ariz. 

Edward G. Norton. . Sergeant Phcenix, Ariz. 

David L. Hughes Sergeant Tucson, Ariz. 

Wounded in head, July i, 1898, at battle before Santiago de Cuba. 

Jerry F. Lee Sergeant .Globe, Ariz. 

Shot in head before Santiago de Cuba, July i, 1898. 

Eugene W.Waterbury Corporal Tucson, Ariz. 

Walter T. Gregory. . Corporal Phoenix, Ariz. 

Thos.W.Pemberton,JrCorporal Phoenix, Ariz. 

George J. McCabe. . ..Corporal Bisbee, Ariz. 

Calvin McCarthy Corporal Phoenix, Ariz. 

Charles E. Heitman. .Corporal Phoenix, Ariz. 

Frank Ward Corporal Globe, Ariz. 

Dudly S. Dean Corporal Boston, Mass. 

John Foster Bugler Bisbee, Ariz. 

Jesse Walters Bugler Phoenix, Ariz. 

Frank W. Harmson. Farrier Tucson, Ariz. 

Fred A. Pomeroy Blacksmith Kingman, Ariz. 

Joseph E. McGinty. . Wagoner Tucson, Ariz. 

Richard E. Goodwin. Saddler Phoenix, Ariz. 



240 



The Rough Riders 



TROOPERS 

Boggs, Looney L., Phoenix, Gurney, Frank W., Tampa, 

Ariz. Fla. 

Buckholdt, Chas., Kickapoo Hall, John M., Phoenix, 

'^ Ariz. 

Wounded in shoulder by shrap- 
nel, July I, 1898, before San- 
tiago de Cuba. Piece of shell 
not removed. 

Hammer, John S., San An- 
tonio, Tex. 

Slightly wounded by shell, July 
I, 1898, before Santiago de 
Cuba. Wounded in leg. 

Hildreth, Fenn S., Tucson, 
Ariz. 

Hartzell, Ira C, Phoenix, 
Ariz. 

Haydon, Roy F., Prescott, 
Ariz. 

Henderson, Sibird, Globe, 
Ariz. 

Hildebrand, Louis T., Pres- 
cott, Ariz. 

Heywood, John P., Tampa, 
Fla. 

James, William T., Jerome, 
Ariz. 

Johnson, Anton E., Pres- 
cott, Ariz. 

King, Geo. C, Prescott, 
Ariz. 

Keir, Alex. S., Bisbee, Ariz. 

Laird, Thomas J., Prescott, 
Ariz. 

Merritt, Fred M., Tucson, 
Ariz. 



Springs, Tex. 

Beebe, Walter S., Prescott, 
Ariz. 

Brady, Fred L., New York, 
N. Y. 

Butler, James A., Albuquer- 
que, N. M. 

Barrowe, Beekman K., 
Tampa, Fla. 

Colwell, Grant, Phoenix, 
Ariz. 

Collier, Edward G., Globe, 
Ariz. 

Chester, Will M., Oakwell, 
Tex. 

Christian, Benjamin, Nor- 
folk, Va. 

Chamberlin, Lowell A., 
Washington, D. C. 

Day, Robert, Santa Fe, 
N. M. 

Drachman, Sol. B., Tucson, 
Ariz. 

Draper, Durward D., Phoe- 
nix, Ariz. 

Eakin, Alva L., Globe, 
Ariz. 

Eads, Wade Q., San An- 
tonio, Tex. 

Fitzgerald, Frank T., Tuc- 
son, Ariz. 

Goss, Conrad F., Tampa, Merritt, William W., Red 
Fla. Oak, la. 



Muster-Out Roll 



241 



McCann, Walter J., Phoe- 
nix, Ariz. 

Iron stanchion fell upon right 
side of head, right arm, and 
shoulder, while asleep in quar- 
ters on transport Yucatan, en 
route for Cuba, June 21, 1898. 

Middleton, Clifton C, Globe, 

Ariz. 
Misner, Jackson H., Bisbee, 

Ariz. 
McMillen, Albert C, New 

York, N. Y. 
Norton, Gould G., Tampa, 

Fla. 
Orme, Norman L., Phoenix, 

Ariz. 

Shot in left arm and side, June 
24, 1898, at Las Guasimas. 
G. S. left shoulder. 

Owens, William A., Jerome, 
Ariz. 

Proffit, William B., Pres- 
cott, Ariz. 

PeckJohnCSanta Fe, N.M. 

Pollock, Horatio C., Phoe- 
nix, Ariz. 

Patterson, Hal. A., Selma, 
Ala. 

Roberts, Frank S., San An- 
tonio, Tex. 

Rinehart, Robert, Phoenix, 
Ariz. 

Stanton, Richard H., Phoe- 
nix, Ariz. 

Saunders, Wellman H., Sa- 
lem, Mass. 

Snodderly, William L., Bis- 
bee, Ariz. 



Smith, Race H., San An- 
tonio, Tex. 

Shot in stomach, breast, and 
arms by shrapnel, July 2, 
1898, before Santiago. 

Schenck, Frank W., Phoe- 
nix, Ariz. 

Stewart, W. Walton, Selma, 
Ala. 

Toland, Jesse T., Bisbee, 
Ariz. 

Truman, George E., San 
Antonio, Tex. 

Townsend, Albert B., Pres- 
cott, Ariz. 

Tilkie, Charles M., Chicago, 
111. 

Van Treese, Louis H., Tuc- 
son, Ariz. 

Warford, David E., Globe, 
Ariz. 

Shot in both thighs, July i, 
i8g8, before Santiago de 
Cuba. 

Webb, William W., Pres- 
cott, Ariz. 

Wiggins, Thomas W., Bis- 
bee, Ariz. 

Shot in right hip at Las Guasi- 
mas, June 24, 1898. G. S. 
left hip. 

Whittaker, George C, Sfl- 
ver City, N. M. 

Wilkerson, Wallace W., 
Santa Fe, N. M. 

Woodward, SidneyH.,King- 
man, Ariz. 

Young, Thomas H., Phoe- 
nix, Ariz. 



Vol. XI.— K 



242 » The Rough Riders 

DISCHARGED 
Bird, Marshall M California. 

Discharged on Surgeon's certificate of disability. Fracture of skull 
and concussion of brain incurred in line of duty, Aug. 8, 1898. 

Cronin, Cornelius P Yuma, Ariz. 

Discharged, June 13, 1898, on Surgeon's certificate. 

Crimmins, Martin L - New York, N. Y. 

Mustered out to accept commission, July 29, 1898. 

Goodrich, David M Akron, O. 

Discharged, May 19, 1898, to accept commission. 

Murphy, James E Delrio, Ariz. 

Discharged, Sept. loth, by order of Secretary of War. Shot in 
head, July i, 1898, before Santiago de Cuba. 

DIED 
Hall, Joel R Corporal Seattle, Wash. 

Killed, July i, 1898, before Santiago de Cuba, buried on field of 
battle. 

Logue, David Globe, Ariz. 

Killed, July i, 1898, before Santiago de Cuba; buried on field of 
battle. 

Norton, Oliver B 

Killed, July i, 1898, before Santiago de Cuba; buried on field of 
battle. 

Saunders, W. H Salem, Mass. 

Died of fever at Santiago. 

Smith, Race W San Antonio, Tex. 

Died of wounds received July 2, 1898. 

Swetman, John W Globe, Ariz. 

Killed, July i, 1898, before Santiago de Cuba; buried on field of 
battle. 

Tomlinson, Leroy E 

Sent to hospital boat, June 19, 1898, en route to Cuba; fever. Cer- 
tificate of death dated June 23, 1898. Body and effects sent 
ashore, care Capt. Stephens, Signal Corps, U. S. A. Typhoid fever 
contracted in line of duty. 

TROOP C 
Captain Joseph L. B. Alexander 

Jos. L. B. Alexander. Captain Phoenix, Ariz. 

Robert S. Patterson, .ist Lieutenant. . .Safiford, Ariz. 
Hal Sayre, Jr 2d Lieutenant. . . Denver, Col. 



Muster-Out Roll 243 

Willis O. Huson ist Sergeant Yuma, Ariz. 

James H. Maxey Q.-M. Sergeant. .Yuma, Ariz. 

Sam W. Noyes Sergeant Tucson, Ariz. 

Adam H. Klingham. .Sergeant Flagstaff, Ariz. 

Sumner H. Gerard. . .Sergeant New York, N. Y. 

John McAndrew Sergeant CongressJ'c'n,Ariz. 

Eldridge E. Jordan. . Sergeant Phoenix, Ariz. 

Wilbur D. French. . . Corporal Safford, Ariz. 

Hedrick M. Warren. Corporal Phoenix, Ariz. 

Bruce C. Weathers. .Corporal Safford, Ariz. 

Frank A, Woodin. . . Corporal Phoenix, Ariz. 

Chas. A. Armstrong. .Corporal San Jose, Cal. 

Elisha E. Garrison. . .Corporal New York, N. Y. 

William T. Atkins. . . Corporal Selma, Ala. 

Oscar J. Mullen Corporal Tempe, Ariz. 

Frank Marti Trumpeter Jerome, Ariz. 

JohnA.W.Stelzriede. Trumpeter Tempe, Ariz. 

James G. Yost Blacksmith Prescott, Ariz. 

Frank Vans Agnew. .Farrier Kissimee, Fla. 

Francis L. Morgan. . Saddler White Hills, Ariz. 

Jerome W. Lankford. Wagoner White Hills, Ariz. 

TROOPERS 

Asay, Wm., Safford, Ariz. Coleman, Lockhart G., St. 

Anderson, Thomas A., San Louis, Mo. 

Antonio, Tex. Danforth, Clyde L., Flag- 

Barthell, Peter K., King- staff, Ariz. 

man, Ariz. Danforth, Wm. H., Flag- 
Bradley, Peter, Jerome, Ariz, staff, Ariz. 
Burks,Robt.E,Prescott,Ariz. Dewees, John L., San An- 
Byrns, Orlando C, Pres- tonio, Tex. 

cott, Ariz. Duncan, Arthur G., New 

Bowler, George P., New York. 

York, N. Y. Engel, Edwin P., Phoenix, 

Carleton,WilliamC., Tempe, Ariz. 

Ariz. Force, Peter, Selma, Ala. 

Carlson, Carl, Tempe, Ariz. Goughan,Jas., Phoenix, Ariz. 

Cartledge, Crantz, Tempe, Gibbins, Floyd J., Prescott, 

Ariz. Ariz. 



244 The Rough Riders 

Goodwin, James C, Tempe, Perry, Arthur R., Phoenix, 

Ariz. Ariz. 

Gardiner, John P., Boston, Ricketts, William L., Phoe- 

Mass. nix, Ariz. 

Gavin, Anthony, Buffalo, Roederer, John, Prescott, 

N. Y. Ariz. 

Hanson, Ivan M., Phoenix, Rupert, Charles W., Pres- 

Ariz. cott, Ariz. 

Hanson, William, Prescott, Reed, George W., Tucson, 

Ariz. Ariz. 

Herold, PhiHp M., Phoenix, Sayers, Samuel E., Yuma, 

Ariz. Ariz. 
Howland, Harry, Flagstaff, Scharf, Charles A., Flag- 
Ariz, staff, Ariz. 
Hubbell, William C, No- Sexsmith, William, Yuma, 

gales, Ariz. Ariz. 

Hall, Edward C, New Shackelford, Marcus L., 

Haven, Conn. Jerome, Ariz. 

Kastens, Harry E., Win- Shoemaker, John, Phoenix, 

slow, Ariz. Ariz. 

Marvin, William E., Yuma, Skogsburg, Charles G., Saf- 

Ariz. ford, Ariz. 

Mason, David P., Browns- Scull, Guy H., Boston, 

ville, Tex. Mass. 

Moffett, Edward B., Yuma, Sloan, Thomas H., Phoenix, 

Ariz. Ariz. 

Neville, George A., Yuma, Somers, Fred B., Flagstaff, 

Ariz. Ariz. 

Norton, John W., Lockport, Trowbridge,Laf ayette, Pres- 

111. cott, Ariz. 

O'Leary, Daniel, Tempe, Vines, Jesse G., Phoenix, 

Ariz. Ariz. 

Parker, John W., Safford, Vance, William E., Austin, 

Ariz. Tex. 

Payne, Forest B., Phoenix, Wormell, John A., Phoenix, 

Ariz. Ariz. 

Pond, Ashley, Detroit, Younger, Charles, Winslow, 

Mich. Ariz. 

Wright, Albert P Color Sergeant * Yuma, Ariz. 

* Color Sergeant of Regiment. 



Muster-Out Roll 245 

DISCHARGED— Disability 
Alamia, John B Private Port Isabel, Tex. 

Discharged, account epileptic fits, per order A. G. O. 

Pearson, Rufus W. . .Sergeant Phoenix, Ariz. 

Discharged, Aug. 26, 1898, on certificate of discharge signed by Sec- 
retary of War General Alger. 

DISCHARGED BY ORDER 
Grindell, Thomas F. .Sergeant Tempe, Ariz. 

Discharged by telegraph order A. G. O., Sept. 8, 1898. 

Hill, Wesley Private Tempe, Ariz. 

Discharged by telegraph order A. G. O., Sept. 8, 1898. 

Scudder, William M. Private Chicago, 111. 

Discharged per special order 204, par. 52, War Department, A. G. O., 
'Washington, D. C, Aug. 30, 1898. 

Wallack, Robt. R Private Washington. 

Discharged, July 19, 1898, per par. 27, S. O. 203, War Department, 
A. G. O., Washington, D. C, Aug. 29, 1898, being appointed 2d 
Lieutenant for Regular Army. 

TRANSFERRED 
Rowdin, John E Private Phoenix, Ariz. 

Transferred, June 8, 1898, per R. O. No. 6, dated Tampa, Fla., 
June 8, 1898. 

DIED 
Adsit, Nathaniel B. . Private Buffalo, N. Y. 

Died, Aug. ist, at Buffalo, of typhoid fever. 

Clearwater, Frank H. Private Brownsville, Tex. 

Died at Corpus Christi, Sept. 2, 1898, of typhoid malaria. 

Newnhone, Thos. M. Private Phoenix, Ariz. 

Died at hospital Fort McPherson, of typhoid fever, Aug. 4, 1898. 

TROOP D 

Captain R. B. Huston 

Robert B. Huston. . . Captain Guthrie, O. T, 

David M. Goodrich. . ist Lieutenant. . .Akron, Ohio. 
Robt. H.M.Ferguson. 2d Lieutenant. . . New York City. 

Orlando G. Palmer. . ist Sergeant Ponco City, O. T. 

Gerald A. Webb Sergeant Guthrie, O. T. 



246 



The Rough Riders 



Joseph A. Randolph. .Sergeant 

Ira A. Hill Sergeant 

Charles E. Hunter. . . Sergeant 

Scott Reay Sergeant 

Paul W. Hunter Sergeant 

Thomas Moran Sergeant 

Calvin Hill Corporal 

George Norris Corporal 

John D. Roades Corporal 

Wounded in battle of Las Guasimas, June 24, 

Lyman F. Beard Corporal 

Henry Meagher Corporal 

Wounded in the battle before Santiago, July i 

Alex. H. Denham. . . Corporal 

Wounded in battle of Las Guasimas, June 24, 

Henry K. Love Corporal 

Harrison J. Holt. . . . Corporal 

William D. Amrine. . Saddler 

Starr W. Wetmore . . .Trumpeter 

Wounded in battle before Santiago, July i, 
vere. Missile or weapon, Mauser rifle. 

James T. Brovi^n .... Trumpeter 

Lorrin D. Muxlovv^. . .Wagoner 

TROOPERS 



.Waukomis, O. T. 
.Newkirk, O. T. 
•Enid, O. T. 
.Blackwell, O. T. 
Chandler, O. T. 
Fort Sill, O. T. 
Pawnee, O. T. 
Kingfisher, O. T. 
Hennessey, O. T. 
1898. G. S. leg. 

Shawnee, O. T. 

El Reno, O. T. 

, 1898. Both shoulders. 

Oklahoma City,O.T 

1898. G. S. left thigh. 

Tecumseh, O. T. 
Denver, Col. 
Newkirk, O. T. 
Newkirk, O. T. 
1898. Right thigh, se- 

Newkirk, O. T. 
Guthrie, O. T. 



Baily, William, Norman,O.T. 

Wounded in battle before San- 
tiago, July 2, 1898. Right 
foot. Missile or weapon, 
Mauser rifle. 

Beal, Fred N., Kingfisher, 
O. T. 

Wounded in battle of Las Guasi- 
mas, June 24, 1898. G. S. leg. 

Burgess, George, Shawnee, 
O. T. 

Brandon, Perry H., Lancas- 
ter, O. T. 

Byrne, Peter F., Guthrie, 

Cease, Forrest L., Guthrie, 
O.T. 



Chase, Leslie C, Kingfisher, 
O.T. 

Cook, Walter M., Enid, 
O. T. 

Crawford, William S., Enid, 
O. T. 

Cross, William E., El Reno, 
O. T. 

Crockett, Warren E., Mari- 
etta, Ga. 

Wounded in battle before San- 
tiago, July 2, 1898. Leg. Mis- 
sile or weapon, Mauser rifle. 

Cunningham, Solomon M., 
San Antonio, Tex. 



Muster-Out Roll 



247 



Carlow, Gerald, Boerne, 
Tex. 

David, Icem J., Enid, O. T. 

Emery, Elzie E., Shawnee, 
O. T. 

Faulk, William A., Guthrie, 
O. T. 

Hill, Edwin M., Tecumseh, 
O. T. 

Honeycutt, James V., Shaw- 
nee, O. T. 

Eppley, Kurtz, Orange, 
N.J. 

Green, Charles H., Albu- 
querque, N. M. 

Hatch, Charles P., New- 
port, R. I. 

Holmes, Thomas M., New- 
kirk, O. T. 

Wounded in battle before San- 
tiago, July I, 1898. Left leg, 
severe. Missile or weapon, 
Mauser rifle. 

Haynes, Jacob M., New- 

kifk, O. T. 
Howard, John S., Boerne, 

Tex. 
Ishler, Shelby P., Enid, O.T. 

Wounded in battle of Las 
Guasimas, June 24, 1898. 
G. S. right forearm. 

Ivy, Charles B., Waco, Tex. 
Johnston, Edward W., Gush- 
ing, O. T. 

Wounded in battle before San- 
tiago, July I, 1898. Right thigh. 

Joyce, Walter, Guthrie, 
O. T. 

Knox, William P. 

Laird, Emmett, Albu- 
querque, N. M. 



Loughmiller, Edgar P., 
Oklahoma City, O. T. 

Lovelace, Carl, Waco, Tex. 

Lush, Henry, EI Reno, O.T. 

McMillan, Robert L., Shaw- 
nee, O. T. 

Wounded in battle before San- 
tiago, July I, 1898, Left 
shoulder and arm. 

McClure, David V., Okla- 
homa City, O. T. 

McMurtry, Geo. G., Pitts- 
burg, Pa. 

Miller, Roscoe B., Guthrie, 
O. T. 

Miller, Volney D., Guthrie, 
O. T. 

Munn, Edward, Elizabeth, 
N.J. 

Newcomb, Marcellus L., 
Kingfisher, O. T. 

Wounded in battle of Las Guasi- 
mas, June 24, 1898. G. S. 
right knee. 

Norris, Warren, Kingfisher, 
O. T. 

Palmer, William P., Shaw- 
nee, O. T. 

Proctor, Joseph H., Paw- 
nee, O. T. 

Pollock, William, Pawnee, 
O. T. 

Russell, Albert P., El Reno, 
O. T. 

Sands, George H., Guthrie, 
O. T. 

Schmutz, John C, German- 
town, Ohio. 

Scott, Cliff D., Clifton, 
O. T. 



24$ 



The Rough Riders 



Schupp, Eugene, Santa Fe, Thomas, Albert M., Guthrie, 

N. M. O. T. 

Shanafelt, Dick, Perry, O.T. Vanderslice,J.E.,Enid,O.T. 

Shipp, Edward M., King- Van Valen, Alexander L., 

fisher, O. T. Poughkeepsie, N. Y. 

Stewart, Clare H., Pawnee, Wolff, Frederick W., San 

O. T. Antonio, Tex. 

Stewart, Clyde H., Pawnee, Wright, William O., Paw- 

O. T. nee, O. T. 

Tauer, William L., Ponca Wright, Edward L., Guthrie, 

City, O. T. O. T. 

DISCHARGED 
Shockey, James M . . .Corporal Perry, O. T. 

Discharged, July i, 1898, by order of Asst. Adjt. Gen'l. 

Luther, Arthur A. . . Farrier Pawnee, O. T. 

Discharged, July i, 1898, by order of Asst. Adjt. Gen'l. 

Page, John F Private Alva, O. T. 

Discharged by verbal order of Gen'l Wood, Aug. 6, 1898. 

Wells, Joseph O Private St. Joseph, Mich. 

Discharged by order of Asst. Adjt. Gen'l, Aug. 27, 1898. 

Simpson, William S. Corporal Dallas, Tex. 

Discharged by reason of promotion into regular army, as 2d Lieut., 
Sept. 3, 1898. 

TRANSFERRED 
Schuyler, A. McGinnis ist Lieutenant. . .Newkirk, O .T. 

Promoted to Captain and transferred to Troop I ist U. S. V. C, 
May 19, 1898. 

Schweizer, Jacob. . . .2d Lieutenant. . . El Reno, O. T. 

Promoted to ist Lieut, and assigned to duty as Q,-M. ist U. S. V. C., 
May 19, 1898. 

Carr, Joseph A ist Lieutenant. .. Washington, D. C. 

Transferred to Troop K ist U. S. V. C., Sept. 5, 1898. Wounded in 
battle before Santiago, July 2, 1898. Left testicle. Missile or 
weapon, Mauser rifle. 

TROOPERS 
Douthett, Matthew,Guthrie, Freeman, Elisha L., Ponca 
O. T. City, O. T. 

Appointed Q.-M. Sergeant ist Transferred to Troop K ist 

U. S. V. €., and assigned to g ^ 

duty, Aug. 31, 1898. . J . ^ 



Muster-Out Roll 



249 



Folk, Theodore, Oklahoma 
City, N. M. 

Transferred to Troop K 1st 
U. S. V. C, May 11, 1898. 

Hulme, Robert A., El Reno, 
O. T. 

Transferred to Troop K ist 
U. S. V. C, May 11, 1898. 

Jordan, Andrew M., El 
Reno, O. T. 

Transferred to Troop K ist 
U. S. V. C, May 11, 1898. 

McGinty, William, Still- 
water, O. T. 

Transferred to Troop K ist 
U. S. V. C, May 11, 1898. 

Mitchell, Wm. H., Guthrie, 
O. T. 

Transferred to Troop K 1st 
U. S. V. C, May 11, 1898. 



Staley, Francis M., Wau- 
komis, O. T. 

Transferred to Troop K 1st 
U. S. V. C, May 11, 1898. 

Smith, Fred, Guthrie, O.T. 

Transferred to Troop K ist 
U. S. V. C, May 11, 1898. 

Weitzel, John F., Newkirk, 
O. T. 

Transferred to Troop K 1st 
U. S. V. C, May 11, 1898. 

Woodward, John A., El 
Reno, O. T. 

Transferred to Troop K ist 
U. S. V. C, May 11, 1898. 

Wilson, F.M., Guthrie, O.T. 

Transferred to Troop K ist 
U. S. V. C, May 11, 1898. 

Burke, Edw.F., Orange, N.J. 

Transferred to Troop A 1st 
U. S. V. C, July 13, 1898. 



DIED 

Cashion, Roy V Private Hennessey, O. T. 

Killed in battle before Santiago, July 1, 1898. Head. 

Miller, Theodore W. Private Akron, Ohio. 

Wounded in battle before Santiago, July 1, 1898. Died from effects 
of wound, July 8, 1898. Penetrating neck; severe — totally para- 
lyzed from head down. 

DESERTED 
Crosley, Henry S Private Guthrie, O. T. 

Dropped from the rolls as deserted, July 8, 1898. 



TROOP E 
Captain Frederick Muller 



Frederick Muller. . . 
William E. Griffin. . 
John A. Mcllhenny. 
John S. Langston . . 
Royal A. Prentice. . 



. Captain Santa Fe, N. M. 

. 1st Lieutenant. . .Santa Fe, N. M. 
.2d Lieutenant. . . New Orleans, La. 
.ist Sergeant. . . . Cerrillos, N. M. 
. Q.-M. Sergeant. .Las Vegas, N. M. 



250 The Rough Riders 

Hugh B. Wright. . . . Sergeant Las Vegas, N. M. 

Albert M. Jones Sergeant Santa Fe, N. M. 

Timothy Breen Sergeant Santa Fe, N. M. 

Wounded and sent to hospital, July i, 1898. Arm. 

Berry F. Taylor Sergeant Las Vegas, N. M. 

Thos. P. Ledgwidge. Sergeant Santa Fe, N. M. 

John Mullen Sergeant Chicago, 111. 

Wounded and sent to hospital, July i, 1898. Side and head; severe. 

HarmanH.Wynkoop. Corporal Santa Fe, N. M. 

Wounded in line of duty and sent to hospital, July 2, 1898. Returned 
to duty, Sept. 4, 1898. 

James M. Dean Corporal Santa Fe, N. M. 

Wounded in line of duty and sent to hospital, June 24, 1898. Re- 
turned to duty, Aug. 31, 1898. G. S. left thigh. 

Edward C. Waller. . .Corporal Chicago, III. 

Wounded in line of duty, July 2, 1898. Scalp, slight. 

G. Roland Fortescue. Corporal New York, N. Y. 

Slight bullet wound in foot, July i, 1898. 

Edward Bennett Corporal Cripple Creek, Col. 

Chas. E Knoblauch. . Corporal New York, N. Y. 

Richard C. Conner. . .Corporal Santa Fe, N. M. 

Ralph E. McFie Corporal Las Cruces, N. M. 

Arthur J. Griffin Trumpeter Santa Fe, N. M. 

Edward S. Lewis Trumpeter Las Vegas, N. M. 

Robert J. Parrish Blacksmith Clayton, N. M. 

Grant Hill Farrier Santa Fe, N. M. 

Joe T. Sandoval Saddler Santa Fe, N. M. 

Guilford B. Chapin. . Wagoner Santa Fe, N. M. 

TROOPERS 

Ausburn, Charles G., New Cooper, George B., Tampa, 

Orleans, La. Fla. 

Almack, Roll, Santa Fe, Conway, James, San An- 

N. M. tonio, Tex. 

Brennan, John M., Santa Dettamore, George W. 

Fe, N. M. Clayton, N. M. 

Baca, Jose M., Las Vegas, Wounded in line of duty and 

N. M. sent to hospital, July i, 1898. 

Beard, William M., San Davis, Harry A., Boston, 
Antonio, Tex. Mass. 



Muster-Out Roll 



251 



Dodge, George H., Denver, 

Col. 
Debli, Joseph, Tampa, Fla. 
Donavan, Freeman M., 

Santa Fe, N. M. 
Douglas, James B., New 

York, N. Y.- 
Easley, William T., Clayton, 

N. M. 
Edwards, Lawrence W. 
Fries, Frank D., Santa Fe, 

N. M. 
Francis, Mack, Maynesville, 

N. C. 
Fettes, George, Antonito, 

Col. 
Gisler, Joseph, Santa Fe, 

N. M. 
Gibbs, James P., Santa Fe, 

N. M. 
Gibbie, William R., Las 

Vegas, N. M. 
Grigsby, Braxton, New 

York, N. Y. 
Grigg, John G., San An- 
tonio, Tex. 
Gammel, Roy U., Jersey 

Co., 111. 
Harding, John D., Socoro, 

N. M. 
Hood, John B., New York, 

N. Y. 
Harkness, Daniel D., Las 

Vegas, N. M. 
Hutchison, William M., 

Santa Fe, N. M. 
Hall, John P., Williamson 

Co., Tex. 

Wounded in line of duty and 



sent to hospital, July i, 1898. 
Returned to duty, Aug. 31, 
1898. 

Hogle, William H., Santa 
Fe, N. M. 

Hudson, Arthur J., Santa 
Fe, N. AL 

Hulskotter, John, Santa Fe, 
N. M. 

Hutchason, Joseph M., Jim- 
town, Tenn. 

Howell, William S. E., Cer- 
rillos, N. M. 

Hadden, David A., San An- 
tonio, Tex. 

Hixon, Thomas L., Las 
Vegas, N. M. 

Heard, Judson, Pecos City, 
Tex. 

Hamlin, Warden W., Chi- 
cago, 111. 

Jones, Thomas B., Santa 
Fe, N. M. 

Johnston, Charles E., San 
Antonio, Tex. 

Jacobus, Charles W., Santa 
Fe, N. M. 

Knapp, Edgar A., Elizabeth, 
N.J. 

Kingsley, Charles E., Las 
Vegas, N. M. 

Kissam, William A., New 
York, N. Y. 

Lowe, Frank, Santa Fe, 
N. M. 

Ludy, Dan, Las Vegas, 
N. M. 

Livingston, Thos. C, Ham- 
ilton Co., Tex. 



252 



The Rough Riders 



Lowitzki, Hyman S., Santa 

Fe, N. M. 
Lewis, James. 
Merchant, James E., Cerril- 

los, N. M. 
Moran, William J., Cerril- 

los, N. M. 
McKinnon, Samuel, Madrid, 

N. M. 
McKinley, Charles E., Cer- 

rillos, N. M. 

Wounded in line of duty, July 
I, 1898. Head. 

McKay, Charles F., Santa 
Fe, N. M. 

McCabe, Frederick H., San- 
ta Fe, N. M. 

McDowell, John C, Santa 
Fe, N. M. 

Morrison, Amaziah B., Las 
Vegas, N. M, 

Mahan, Lloyd L., Cerrillos, 
N. M. 

Martin, Henry D., Cerril- 
los, N. M. 

Menger, Otto F., Clayton, 
N. M. 

Wounded in line of duty, July 
I, 1898. Sent to hospital. 
Left side. 

Mungor, William C, Santa 
Fe, N. M. 



Nettleblade, Adolph F., Cer- 
rillos, N. M. 

Roberts, Thomas, Golden, 
N. M. 

Ryan, John E., Santa Fe, 
N. M. 

Wounded July i, 1898, in line 
of duty. 

Ramsey, Homer M., Pear- 
sail, Tex. 

Seaders, Ben. F., Las Ve- 
gas, N. M. 

Skinner, Arthur V., Santa 
Fe, N. M. 

Schnepple, William C, San- 
ta Fe, N. M. 

Scanlon, Edward, Cerrillos, 
N. M. 

Slevin, Edward, Tampa, 
Fla. 

Taylor, William R., New 
York, N. Y. 

Wagner, Wm. W., Bland, 
N. M. 

Wright, George, Madrid, 
N. M. 

Wynkoop, Chas. W., Santa 
Fe, N. M. 

Warren, George W., Santa 
Fe, N. M. 



DISCHARGED 
Dame, William E ist Sergeant Cerrillos, N. M. 

Discharged per O. reg. comds., Aug. 10, 1898. 

Wesley, Frederick C. Sergeant Santa Fe, N. M. 

Discharged on account of disability, Aug. 26, 1898. Wounded fore- 
arm, slight, July 1, 2, or 3. 



Muster-Out Roll 253 

TRANSFERRED BY VERBAL ORDER REGI- 
MENTAL COMMANDER, MAY 12, i8p8 

Reber, William R. . . Sergeant 

Price, Stuart R "Corporal 

Bernard, William C. . Trooper 

Brown, Hiram T. . . . Trooper 

Bump, Arthur L . . . . Trooper 

Cloud, William Trooper 

Davis, Henry Clay. . Trooper 

Duran, Jose L Trooper 

Easton, Stephen Trooper 

Fennell, William A. . Trooper 

Fleming, Clarence A . Trooper 

Holden, Prince A. . . .Trooper 

Land, Oscar N Trooper 

Martin, John Trooper 

Roberts, John P Trooper 

Stephens, Orregon. . .Trooper r 

Torbett, John G Trooper 

Williams, Thomas C. Trooper 

Zigler, Daniel J Trooper 



DIED 
Cochran, Irad, Jr Trooper 

Died, May 26, 1898, San Antonio, Tex. Spinal meningitis. 

Miller, John S Trooper 

Died, July 16, 1898, of yellow fever, at Siboney, Cuba. 

Judson, Alfred M . . . Trooper 

Died, Aug. 17, 1898, of typhoid fever, at Montauk Point, L. I. 

O'Neill, John Trooper 

Died, Aug. 3, 1898, of dysentery, at Edgmont Key, Fla. 

KILLED 
Green, Henry C Trooper 

Killed in action, July i, 1898, near Santiago de Cuba. 

Robinson, John F. . . Trooper 

Killed in action, July 2, 1898, near Santiago de Cuba. 

ALTERATIONS, SEPTEMBER, 7, 1898 
Sherrard, Coleman. . .ist Lieutenant. . .Santa Fe, N. M. 
John A. Mcllhenny. .2d Lieutenant. . . New Orleans, La. 



254 The Rough Riders 

TROOP F 
Captain Maximilian Luna 

Maximilian Luna Captain Santa Fe, N. M. 

Horace W. Weakley, ist Lieutenant. . .Santa Fe, N. M. 
William E. Dame. . . 2d Lieutenant. . . Santa Fe, N. M. 

Transferred from Troop E to F. 

Horace E. Sherman, ist Sergeant Santa Fe, N. M. 

Garfield Hughes Sergeant Santa Fe, N. M. 

Thos. D. Fennessy. . .Sergeant Santa Fe, N. M, 

William L. Mattocks. Sergeant Santa Fe, N. M. 

James Doyle Sergeant Santa Fe, N. M. 

George W. Armijo. . .Sergeant Santa Fe, N. M. 

Wounded in action, June 24th. G. S. wrist. 

Eugene Bohlinger. . . Sergeant Santa Fe, N. M. 

Herbert A. King Sergeant Santa Fe, N. M. 

Edward Donnelly. . . .Corporal Santa Fe, N. M. 

John Cullen Corporal Santa Fe, N. M. 

Edward Hale Corporal Santa Fe, N. M. 

Arthur P. Spenser. . .Corporal Santa Fe, N. M. 

John Boehnke Corporal Santa Fe, N. M. 

Albert Powers Corporal Santa Fe, N. M. 

Wounded in action, July i, 1898. 

Wentworth S. Conduit Corporal Santa Fe, N. M. 

Ray V. Clark Farrier Santa Fe, N. M. 

Contusion scalp, slight. Missile shrapnel. Wounded near Santiago 
de Cuba, July i, 2, or 3, 1898. 

Charles R. Gee Farrier Santa Fe, N. M. 

Jefferson Hill Wagoner Santa Fe, N. M. 

J. Kirk McKurdy. . . .Trumpeter San Antonio, Tex. 

Arthur L. Perry Bugler Santa Fe, N. M. 

Shoulder. Mauser rifle. Wounded near Santiago de Cuba, July i, 
2, or 3, 1898. 

TROOPERS 

Albers, H. L., Santa Fe, Albertson, Ed J., Santa Fe, 

N. M. N. M. 

Wounded in action, June 24, Wounded in action, June 24. G. 

1898. G. S. right wrist. S. wrist. 



Muster-Out Roll 



^SS 



Alexander James, Santa Fe, 
N. M. 

Abbott, Chas. G., Santa Fe, 
N. M. 

Adams, Edgar S., San An- 
tonio, Tex. 

Alexander, James F,, Santa 
Fe, N. M. 

Black, James S., Santa Fe, 
N. M. 

Bailey, Robert Z., Santa Fe, 
N. M. 

Wounded in action, June 24th. 
G. S. both legs. 

Boschen, John, San An- 
tonio, Tex. 

Bell, Wm. A., Tampa, Fla. 

Brennan, Jeremiah, Santa 
Fe, N. M. 

Burris, Walter C, Santa 
Fe, N. M. 

Byrne, John, Muscogee, I. T 

Transferred from Troop L to F. 

Bell, John H., Santa Fe, 
N. M. 

Cochran, William O., Santa 
Fe, N. M. 

Clark, Frank J., San An- 
tonio, Tex. 

Colbert, Benjamin H., San 
Antonio, Tex. 

Christian, Edward D., Tam- 
pa, Fla. 

Clelland, Calvin G., Santa 
Fe, N. M. 

Conley, Edward C, Santa 
Fe, N. M. 

Cochran, Willard M., Santa 
Fe, N. M. 



Cherry, Charles C, Santa 

Fe, N. M. 
Dougherty, Louis, Santa 

Fe, N. M. 
De Bohun, John C, Santa 

Fe, N. M. 
Farley, William, Santa Fe, 

N. M. 
Freeman, Will, Santa Fe, 

N. M. 

Wounded by fragments of shell 
in wrist, July i, 1898. Left 
wrist. 

Gibbs, Henry M., Santa Fe, 
N. M. 

Gunshot wound in foot, July i, 
1898. 

Gallagher, Wm. D., Santa 

Fe, N. M. 
Goldberg, Samuel, Santa 

Fe, N. M. 

Wounded in action, July i, 1898. 
Hip. Mauser rifle. 

Glessner, Otis, Santa Fe, 

N. M. 
Green, John D., Santa Fe, 

N. M. 
Hartle, Albert C, Santa 

Fe, N. M. 

Gunshot wound in testicles, June 
24, 1898. 

Hopping, Charles O., Santa 

Fe, N. M. 
Hammer, George, Santa Fe, 

N. M. 
Kennedy, Stephan A., Santa 

Fe, N. M. 
Leffert, Charles E., Santa 

Fe, N. M. 
Lisk, Guy M., Santa Fe, 

N. M. 



256 



The Rough Riders 



Leach, John M., Santa Fe, 
N. M. 

Le Stourgeon, E. Guy, San 
Antonio, Tex. 

Lavelle, Nolan Z., San An- 
tonio, Tex. 

Martin, Thomas, Santa Fe, 
N. M. 

Mills, John B., Santa Fe, 
N. M. 

McGregor, Herbert P., San- 
ta Fe, N. M. 

Wounded in action, July i, 1898. 
Left shoulder. Mauser rifle. 

McCurdy, F. Allen, San 

Antonio, Tex. 
Nickell, William E., Santa 

Fe, N. M. 
Nesbit, Otto W., Santa Fe, 

N. M. 
Newitt, George W., Santa 

Fe, N. M. 
Neal, John M., Santa Fe, 

N. M. 
Parmele, Charles A., Santa 

Fe, N. M. 
Quier, Frank T., Santa Fe, 

N. M. 
Raymond, Milliard L., San- 
ta Fe, N. M. 
Reed, Harry B., Santa Fe, 

N. M. 
Reed, Clifford L., Santa Fe, 

N. M. 

Wounded in action, June 24, 
1898. In arm. 

Renner, Charles L., Santa 

Fe, N. M. 
Reynolds, Edwin L., Santa 

Fe, N. M. 



Russell, Arthur L., Santa 

Fe, N. M. 
Rebentisch, Adolph, San 

Antonio, Tex. 

Gunshot wound in shoulder, 
June 24, 1898. Left shoulder. 

Reyer, Adolph T., Santa 

Fe, N. M. 
Rogers, Albert, Santa Fe, 

N. M. 
Rice, Lee C, Santa Fe, 

N. M. 
Staub, Louis E., Santa Fe, 

N. M. 
Shields, William G., Santa 

Fe, N. M. 
Stockbridge, Arthur H., 

Santa Fe, N. M. 
Sharland, George H., Santa 

Fe, N. M. 
Skipwith, John G., Santa 

Fe, N. M. 
Sinnett, James B., Santa 

Fe, N. M. 
Tangen, Edward, Santa Fe, 

N. M. 
Trump, Norman O., Santa 

Fe, N. M. 
Vinnedge, George E., Santa 

Fe, N. M. 
Wardwell, Louis C, Santa 

Fe, N. M. 
Warren, Paul, Santa Fe, 

N. M. 
Watrous, Charles E., Santa 

Fe, N. M. 
Weber, Beauregard, Santa 

Fe, N. M. 



Muster-Out Roll 



257 



Weller, Samuel M., San Wertheim, Adolph S., San 

Antonio, Tex. Antonio, Tex. 

Winter, John G., San An- Walsh, John, Santa Fe, 

tonio, Tex. N. M. 

Gunshot wounds in shoulder, Wells, Thomas J., Santa 

arm and leg, July i, 1898. p^ |^_ yj^^ 

Winter, Otto R., San An- Wilson, Harry W., Tampa, 
tonio, Tex. Fla. 

DISCHARGED 
Douglass, James Private Santa Fe, N. M. 

Discharged acct. Surgeon's certificate of disability. 

TRANSFERRED 
Keyes, Maxwell 2d Lieutenant . . . Santa Fe, N. M. 

Promoted to Adjutant, August i, 1898. 



TROOPERS 



Flynn, Joseph F., Santa Fe, 
N. M. 

Transferred from Troop F to I, 
May 12, 1898, San Antonio, 
Tex. 

Goodrich, Hedrick Ben, 
Santa Fe, N. M. 

Transferred from Troop F to I, 
May 12, 1898, San Antonio, 
Tex. 

Hickey, Walter, Santa Fe, 

N. M. 

Transferred from Troop F to I, 
May 12, 1898, San Antonio, 
Tex. 

Hogan, Michael, Santa Fe, 

N. M. 

Transferred from Troop F to 1, 
May 12, 1898, San Antonio, 
Tex. 

King, Harry Bruce, Santa 

Fe, N. M. 

Transferred from Troop F to 1, 
May 12, 1898, San Antonio, 
Tex. 



Kerney, George M., Santa 
Fe, N. M. 

Transferred from Troop F to I, 
May 12, 1898, San Antonio, 
Tex. 

Larsen, Louis, Santa Fe, 

N. M. 

Transferred from Troop F to I, 
May 12, 1898, San Antonio, 
Tex. 

McCoy, John, Santa Fe, 

N. M. 

Transferred from Troop F to I, 
May 12, 1898, San Antonio, 
Tex. 

Nehmer, Charles A., Santa 
Fe, N. M. 

Transferred from Troop F to I, 
May 12, 1898, San Antonio, 
Tex. 

Rogers, Leo G., N. M. 

Transferred from Troop F to I, 
May 12, 1898, San Antonio, 
Tex. 



258 The Rough" Riders 

Rafalowitz, Hyman, Santa May 12, 1898, San Antonio, 

Transferred from Troop F to I, -nt ■i\/r ' ' 

Mayi2, 1898, San Antonio.Tex. -N- M 

encer, Edwards John, ^''^^^ 

Santa Fe, N. M. Tel. 

Transferred from Troop F to I, Bawcoi 
May 12, 1898, San Antonio.Tex. 

Schearnhorst, Jr., Carl J., Trans?---^ 

Santa Fe, N. M. mI^j 

Transferred from Troop F to I, Tex, 



Spencer, Edwards John, Transferred from Troop F to I, 

^ •> ' May 12, 1898, San Antonio. 

Tex. 

Transferred from Troop F to I, BawcOttl, Joseph L., Santa 

May 12, 1898, San Antonio.Tex. > J f > 

c J. T^' -VT Tv/r Transferred from Troop F to I, 

banta l^e, W. M. May 12, 1898, San Antonio, 



DIED 
Booth, Frank B Private Madison, Wis. 

Wounded in action at Las Guasimas, June 24, 1898; died at Key 
West, August 30, 1898. G. S. right shoulder. 

Erwin, William T. . . Private Austin, Tex. 

Killed in action, June 24, 1898, Las Guasimas. G. S. head. 
Endsley, Guy D Private Somerfield, Pa. 

Died in Cuba, July 18, 1898, of fever. 

DESERTED 

Thompson, Charles. . Private Mercer Co., W.Va. 

Deserted at Tampa, Fla., July zy, 1898. 

DISCHARGED 

Mcllhenny, John A. .Corporal San Antonio, Tex. 

Discharged to accept commission. 



TROOP G 
Captain William H. H. Llewellen 

Wm. H. H. LlewellenCaptain Las Cruces, N. M. 

John Wesley Green, .ist Lieutenant. . .Gallup, N. M. 
David J. Leahy 2d Lieutenant. . . Raton, N. M. 

On sick list from July ist to Sept. 3d from wound received in San 
Juan battle. 

Columbus H. McCaa.ist Sergeant Gallup, N. M. 

Jacob S. Mohler Q.-M. Sergeant. .Gallup, N. M. 

Raymond Morse Sergeant 

Rolla A. FuUenweider. Sergeant Raton, N. M. 



Muster-Out Roll 259 

Matthew T.McGehee. Sergeant Raton, N. M. 

James Brown Sergeant Gallup, N. M. 

Nicholas A. Vyne. . . . Sergeant Emporia, Kan. 

Raleigh L. Miller. . . Sergeant Pueblo, Col. 

Henry Kirah Corporal Gallup, N. M. 

James D. Ritchie Corporal Gallup, N. M. 

Luther L. Stewart. . . Corporal Raton, N. M. 

Wounded in battle, June 24th. Absent since on account of wound. 
G. S. left forearm. 

John McSparron Corporal Gallup, N. M. 

Wounded, July ist. Absent since on account of wound. Right 
thigh, severe. Missile, shrapnel. 

Frank Briggs Corporal Raton, N. M. 

Edw. C. Armstrong. .Corporal Albuquerque, N.M. 

William S. Reid Corporal Raton, N. M. 

Hiram E. Williams. . Corporal Raton, N. M. 

George V. Haefner. . Farrier Gallup, N. M. 

Frank A. Hill Saddler Raton, N. M. 

Thomas O'Neal Wagoner Springer, N. M. 

WiUis E. Somers Trumpeter Raton, N. M. 

Edward G. Piper Trumpeter Silver City, N. M. 

Alvin C. Ash Trooper Raton, N. M. 

Absent from command since July ist to Sept. 7th on account of wound 
received in battle. Wrist, slight. Missile, shrapnel. 

TROOPERS 

Arnold, Edward B., Pres- Brown, Robert, Gallup, 

cott, Ariz. N. M. 

Akin, James E., Dolores, Brown, Edwin M., San An- 

Col. tonio, Tex. 

Anderson, Arthur T., Al- Brazelton, William H., St. 

buquerque, N. M. Louis, Mo. 

Andrews, William C, Sul- Beissel, John J., Gallup, 

phur Springs, Tex. N. M. 

Beck, Joseph H., San An- Camp, Cloid, Raton, N. M. 

tonio, Tex. Camp, Marion, Raton,N.M. 

Bishop, Louis B., San An- Covenaugh, Thomas F., 

tonio, Tex. Raton, N. M. 

Brumley, Jr., William H., Absent since June 24th on ac- 

•r^ ,•"■'_,' , ' count of wound received m 

Dolores, Col. battie. 



26o 



The Rough Riders 



Cody, William E., St. 
Louis, Mo, 

Chopetal, Frank W., Buf- 
falo, N. Y. 

Coyle, Michael H., Raton, 
N. M. 

Absent on sick leave since June 
24th on account of wound in 
arm received in battle. 

Clark, Winslow, Milton, 
Mass. 

Absent on sick leave since July 
ist on account of gunshot wound 
through lung received in bat- 
tle. Right lung, severe. Mis- 
sile or weapon, Mauser rifle. 

Cotton, Frank W., Jen- 
nings, La. 

Conover, Alfred J., Chica- 
see, I. T. 

Detwiler, Sherman, Musca- 
tine, la. 

Dunn, Alfred B., Calvert, 
Tex. 

Edmunds, John H., Alle- 
ghany, Pa. 

Faupel, Henry F., Marting- 
ton. 111. 

Fornoff, Frederick, Albu- 
querque, N. M. 

Fitch, Roger S., Buffalo, 
N. Y. 

Gibson, WilHam C, Gallup, 
N. M. 

Gevers, Louis, Austin, Tex. 

Absent from July ist till Aug. 

2d on account of gunshot 

wound in hips received in 
battle. 

Goodwin, John, Gallup,N.M. 
Healey, Frank F., Brook- 
lyn, N. Y. 



Henderson, John, Gallup, 

N. M. 

Absent from July 1st to Sept. 
2d on account of wound in 
arm received in battle. Wrist. 
Missile or weapon, Mauser 
rifle. 

Henshaw, Laten R., El 
Paso, Tex. 

Johnson, Albert John, Ra- 
ton, N. M. 

Kline, John S., San Mar- 
cial, N. M. 

Keeley, Bert T., Lamy, 
N. M. 

King, Henry A., Massitee, 
Mich. 

Littleton, Elias M., Spring- 
er, N. M. 

Lincoln, Malcolm D., Luck- 
now, I. T. 

Larson, Anton, Silverton, 
Col. 

Lyle, James C, George- 
town, Col. 

Miller, Frank P., Los An- 
geles, Cal. 

Meyers, Fred P., Gallup, 
N. M. 

Reduced from ist Sergt. to 
Trooper on account of absence 
caused by wound received in 
battle, July 1, 1898. Head, 
severe. 

Moran, Daniel, Gallup, 
N. M. 

Mann, Eugene M., Omaha, 
Neb. 

McCarthy, George H., Los 
Angeles, Cal. 

McKinney, Frank G., Har- 
rison, Ark. 



Muster-Out Roll 261 

McKinney, Oliver, Cannon Ragland, Robt. C, Guthrie, 

City, Col. O. T. 

McMullen, Samuel J., St. Roland, George, Deming, 

Louis, Mo. N. M. 

Noish, John, Raton, N. M. G. S. right side, June 24, 1898. 

Phipps, T. W., Bland, N. M. Stillson Earl, Topeka, 

Petty, Archibald, Gallup, Kan. 

N. M. Simmons, Chas. M., Raton, 

Pennington, Elijah, San N. M. 

Antonio, Tex. Slaughter, Benjamin, San 

Preston, Robert A., Stiles, Antonio, Tex. 

Tex. Shannon, Chas. W., Raton, 

Quigg, George H., Gallup, N. M. 

N. M. Thomas, Neal, Aztec, N.M. 

Quinn, Walter D., San Travis, Grant, Aztec, N. M. 

Marcial, N. M. Van Horn, Eustace E., Hal- 

Radclifif, William, Gallup, stead, Kan. 

N. M. Welch, Toney, Durango, 

Richards, Richard, Albu- Col. 

querque, N. M. Whittington, Richard, Gal- 

Rayburn, Harry C, Cam- lup, N. M. 

den, la. Whited, Lyman E., Raton, 

Reid, Robert W., Raton, N. M. 

N. M. Wood, William D., Bland, 

Absent on sick leave from June N. M. 

24th to Sept. 8th on account Wright, Clarence, Springer, 

of wound in side received in xt tut > r fa > 

battle. G. S. to right hip. N. M. 

DISCHARGED 
Swan, George D Gallup, N. M, 

Discharged on account of disability. 

Thompson, Frank M Aztec, N. M, 

Discharged on account of disability. 

DESERTED 

McCulloch, Sam'l T Springer, N. M. 

Deserted from camp at Tampa, Fla., Aug. 4, 1898. 



262 The Rough Riders 



DEATHS 
Green, J. Knox Rancho, Tex. 

Died at Montauk Point, N. Y., Camp U. S. Troops, Aug. 15, because 
of sickness which originated in line of duty. 

Lutz, Eugene A Raton, N. M. 

Detained in yellow- fever hospital by medical authorities when regiment 
left Cuba. Died in same, Aug. 15, 1898. 

KILLED IN ACTION 
Haefner, Henry J Gaillup, N. M. 

In battle, June 24, 1898. 

Russell, Marcus D Troy, N. Y. 

Killed in action, June 24, 1898. 

TRANSFERRED 
Arendt, Henry J Sergeant Gallup, N. M. 

Transferred to Troop I, May 12th. 

Corbe, M. C Trumpeter 

Transferred to Troop K, May nth. 



TROOPERS 

Bailie, Henry C, Gallup, Donnelly, Rutherford B. 

N. M. H., Jefferson, O. T. 

Transferred from Troop I to Transferred to Troop I, May 

Troop G, Aug. 31, 189S. 12th. 

Love, William J., Raton, Evans, Evan, Gallup, N. M. 

N. M. Transferred to Troop 1, May 

Transferred to Troop 1, May 12th. 

T.J c u 1 n xj Groves, Oscar W., Raton, 

Morgan, Schuyler C., Haz- mm 

ard, Ky. Transferred to Troop I, May 

Transferred to Troop I, May j^tj, 
12th. 

Morgan, Ulysses G., Haz- Jones, William H., Raton, 

ard, Ky. N. M. 

Transferred to Troop 1, May Transferred to Troop I, May 



i2th. 



i2th. 



Odell, William D., Parkers- Kania, Frank, Jamestown, 

burg, W. Va. N. D. 

Transferred to Troop I, May Transferred to Troop K, May 

i2tli. nth. 



Muster-Out Roll 263 

Pierce, Ed., Chicago, 111. Peabody.Harry, Raton.N.M. 

Transferred to Troop I, May Transferred to Troop I, May 

i2th. 12th. 

Saville, Michael, Chicago, McGowan, Alexander, Gal- 
Ill, lup, N. M. 

Transferred to Troop I, May Transferred to Troop I, May 

i2th. i2th. 

Sinnett, Lee, Maizeville, W. Brown, John, Gallup, N.M. 

■y Transferred to Troop I, May 

Transferred to Troop I, May ^ ^f ' ^ , -n. -n. 

i2th. Crockett, Joseph B., Raton, 

Tait, John H., Raton. N. M. N. :M. 

Transferred to Troop I, May Transferred to Troop I, May 

I2th. i2th. 



TROOP H 
Captain George Curry 

George Curry Captain Tularosa, N. M. 

William H. Kelly ist Lieutenant. . .E. Las Vegas, N.M. 

Charles L. Ballard. ..2d Lieutenant. . . Roswell, N. M. 

Green A. Settle ist Sergeant Jackson Co., Ky. 

Nevin P. Gutilius Sergeant Tularosa, N. M. 

William A. Mitchell. Sergeant El Paso, Tex. 

Oscar de Montell Sergeant Roswell, N. M. 

Thomas Darnell Sergeant Denver, Col. 

Willis J. Physioc Sergeant Columbia, S. C. 

Michael Cr^Rose Sergeant Silver City, N. M. 

"T^Tova A. Johnson Sergeant Roswell, N. M. 

Morton M- Morgan . . Corporal Silver City, N. M. 

Arthur E. Williams. .Corporal Las Cruces, N. M. 

Frank Murray Corporal Roswell, N. M. 

MorganO.B.LewellynCorporal Las Cruces, N. M. 

James C. Hamilton . . Corporal Roswell, N. M. 

George F. Jones Corporal El Paso, Tex. 

Charles P. Cochran. . Corporal Eddy, N. M. 

John M. Kelly Corporal El Paso, Tex. 

Robert E. Ligon Trumpeter Beaumont, Tex. 

Gaston R. Dehumy. . Trumpeter Santa Fe, N. M. 

Uriah Sheard Blacksmith El Paso, Tex. 



264 The Rough Riders 

Robert L, Martin. . . .Farrier Santa Fe, N. M. 

John Shaw Saddler Scott Co., Iowa. 

Taylor B. Lewis Wagoner Las Cruces, N. M. 

TROOPERS 

Allison, Jovillo, Benton- Doty, George B., Santa Fe, 

ville, Ark. N. M. 

Amonette, Albert B., Ros- Dunkle, Frederick W., East 

well, N. M. Las Vegas, N. M. 

Bendy, Cecil C, El Paso, Douglas, Arthur L,, Eddy, 

Tex. N. M. 

Black, Columbus L., Las Eaton, Frank A., Silver 

Cruces, N. M. City, N. M. 

Bryan, John B., Las Cruces, Fletcher, Augustus C, Sil- 

N. M. ver City, N. M. 

Bogardus, Frank, Las Frye, Obey B,, Flagstaff, 

Cruces, N. M. Ariz. 

Brown, Percy, Spring Hill, Gasser, Louis, El Paso, Tex. 

Tenn. George, Ira W., Quincy, 111. 

Baker, Philip S., Clinton, Grisby, James B., Deming, 

Iowa. N. M. 

Bullard, John W., Guada- Hamilton, James M., Dem- 

loupe, Tex. ing, N. M. 

Connell, Thomas J., Ben- Herring, Leary O., Silver 

nett, Tex. City, N. M. 

Corbett, Thomas F., Ros- Hunt, Le Roy R., Cincin- 

well, N. M. nati, O. 
Cornish, Thomas J., Free- Houston, Robert C, Hills- 
stone, Tex. boro, N. M. 
Crawford, Clinton K., Cin- James, Frank W., Marion 

cinnati, O. Co., Ga. 

Cone, John S., Tularosa, Johnson, Charles, Lund, 

N. M. Sweden. 

Duran, Abel B., Silver City, Johnson, Harry F., Beau- 

N. M. mont, Tex. 

Duran, Jose L., Santa Fe, Johnson, Lewis L., Beau- 

N. M. mont, Tex. 

Dorsey, Lewis, Silver City, Kehoe, Michael J., Ottawa, 

N. M. Canada. 



Muster-Out Roll 



265 



Kehn,Amandus, Silver City, 
N. M. 

Kinnebrugh, Ollie A., El 
Paso, Tex. 

Kendall, Harry J., Coles- 
burg, Ky. 

Lawson, Frank H., Las 
Cruces, N. M. 

Lewis, Adelbert, Beaver 
Co., Utah. 

Lannon, Jno., Hillsboro, Tex. 

Mooney, Thomas A., Silver 
City, N. M. 

Moneckton, Wm. J., San 
Antonio, Tex. 

McAdams, Joel H., Mt. 
Pilia, Tenn. 

McAdams, Richard P., Mt. 
Pilia, Tenn. 

McCarty, Frederick J., 
Mentzville, Mo. 

Murray, George F., Dem- 
ing, N. M. 

Nobles, William H., Silver 
City, N. M. 

Neff,Nettleton,Cincinnati,0. 

Owens, Clay T., El Paso, 
Tex. 

Ott,C. H., Silver City, N.M. 

Pace John, Bentonville, Ark. 

Pipkins, Price. 

Powell, Lory H., Roswell, 
N. M. 

Pronger, Norman W., Sil- 
ver City, N. M. 

Pollock, John F., Tularosa, 
N. M. 

Piersol, James M., Os- 
borne, Mo. 



Roberson, James R., Belle 
Co., Tex. 

Rutherford, Bruce H., 
Pana, 111. 

Regan, John J., Beaumont, 
Tex. 

Sharp, Emerson E., Wana- 
maker, Tenn. 

Stewart, Newtown, El Paso, 
Tex. 

Scroggins, Oscar, Logan 
Co., 111. 

St. Clair, Edward C, New 
Orleans, La. 

Saucier, Harry S., New 
Orleans, La. 

Schutt, Henry, Warren, Pa. 

Sawyer, Benjamin, Hills- 
boro, 111. 

Thompson, Alexander M., 
Deming, N. M. 

Traynor, William S., Wil- 
cox, Ariz. 

Thomas, Theodore C, 
Leavenworth, Kan. 

Waggoner, Daniel G., Ros- 
well, N. M. 

Waggoner, Curtis C, Ros- 
well, N. M. 

Wilson, Charles E., Boul- 
der, Col. 

Wilkinson, Samuel I., Cin- 
cinnati, O. 

Woodson, Pickens E., 
Honey Grove, Tex. 

Wheeler, Frank G., Cha- 
tauqua Co., N. Y. 

Wickham, Patrick A., So- 
corro, N. M. 



Vol. XI.— L 



266 The Rough Riders 

DISCHARGED 
Rynerson, Wm. L. . . Sergeant Las Cruces, N. M. 

Discharged from service of U. S. Army by reason of special order 
No. 145 Hd. Qrs., U. S. Army, Washington, D. C. 

TRANSFERRED 

John B. Wiley Sergeant 

Transferred to Troop I, May 12, 1898. 

Joseph F. Kansky. . . Sergeant 

John V. Morrison. . . Sergeant Santa Fe, N. M. 

Transferred to Troop I, May 12, 1898. 

TROOPERS 
Lee, Robert E., Donabua, Frenger, Muna C, Las 
N. M. Cruces, N. M. 

Transferred to Troop I, May 12, Transferred to Troop I, May 12, 

1898. 1898. 

Bennett, Orton A., Jack Co., Hermeyer, Ernest H., Ger- 
Tex. many. 

Transferred to Troop I, May I2, Transferred to Troop I, May 12, 

1898. 1898. 

Brito, Jose, El Paso, Tex. Jopling, Cal., Hamilton Co., 

Transferred to Troop I, May 12, Tcx. 

T, -J ^ 't- 1 ^ T-t T-. Transferred to Troop I, May 12, 

Brito, Frank C, El Paso, 1898. 

Tex. Nehmer, Wm., Germany. 

Transferred to Troop I, May 12, Transferred to Troop I, May 12, 

1898. 1898. 

Gate, James S., Grape Vine, Roediger, August, Char- 
Tex. lotte, N. C. 

Transferred to Troop I, May 12, Transferred to Troop I, May 12, 

1898. 1898. 

Casad, C. Darwin, Las Schafer, George, Pinos Al- 
Cruces, N. M. , tos, N. M. 

Transferred to Troop I, May 12, Transferred to Troop I, May 12, 

1898. 1898. 

Dolan, Thomas P., Ticon- Storms, Morris J., Roswell, 
deroga, N. Y. N. M. 

Transferred to Troop I, May 12, Transferred to Troop I, May 12, 

1898. 1898. 

Farrell, Frederick P., El Sullivan, William J., Man- 
Paso, Tex. Chester, Va. 

Transferred to Troop I, May 12, Transferred to Troop I, May 12, 



Muster-Out Roll 267 

Fritz, William H., Windsor, Bucklin, E.W., Chautauqua 
Conn. Co., N. Y. 

Transferred to Troop I, May 12, Transferred to Troop L., June 

1898. 8, 1898. 

Eberman, Henry J., Brem- Wright, Grant, Cold Spr'gs, 
en, Germany. N. Y. 

Transferred from Troop K to Transferred to Troop L., June 

Troop H, May 16, 1898. Re- 8, 1898. 

transferred to K, June 8, 1898, 
Died. 

DIED 

Gosling, Fred'k W. Bedfordshire, Eng. 

Died in hospital at Camp Wikoff, N. Y., Aug. 19, 1898. 

Casey, Edwin Eugene Las Cruces, N. M. 

Died in hospital at Camp Wikoff, N. Y., Sept. i, 1898. 

DESERTED 
Ewell, Edward A Adrian, III. 

Deserted, June 28, 1898, at Tampa, Fla. , 

Miller, Samuel Roswell, N. M. 

Deserted, June 28, 1898, at Tampa, Fla. 



TROOP I 
Captain Schuyler A. McGinnis 

Schuyler A. McGinnis Captain Newkirk, O. T. 

Fred'k W. Wintge. . . ist Lieutenant. . .Santa Fe, N. M. 
Samuel Grenwald. . . .2d Lieutenant. . . Prescott, Ariz. 

John B. Wylie ist Sergeant Fort Bayard, N. M. 

Schuyler C.Morgan.. Q.-M. Sergeant. .Durango, Col. 

John V. Morrison. . . Sergeant Springerville,Ariz. 

William R. Reber Sergeant 

Basil M. Ricketts Sergeant Lambs' Club, N. Y. 

Percival Gassett Sergeant Dedham, Mass. 

James S. Gate Sergeant Grape Vine, Tex. 

Wm. H. WaffensmithSergeant Raton, N. M. 

August Roediger Corporal Charlotte, N. C. 

Numa C. Freuger Corporal Las Cruces, N. M, 

William J. Sullivan. . Corporal Silver City, N. M. 



a68 



The Rough Riders 



William J. Nehmer. . 
Abraham L. Bainter. 
Hiram T. Brown. . , . 
Errickson M. Nichols 
George M. Kerney. . . 

Robert E. Lea 

Cl'nce H. Underwood 
Charles A. Nehmer. . 

Hayes Donnelly 

Leo G. Rogers 

Everett E. Holt 



Corporal Silver City, N. M. 

Corporal ColoradoSp'gs.Col. 

Corporal Albuquerque, N. M. 

Corporal 52 E. 78th St., N. Y. 

Corporal Globe, Ariz. 

Trumpeter Dona Ana, N. M. 

Trumpeter ColoradoSp'gs.Col. 

Blacksmith Chicago, 111. 

Farrier Jefferson, O. T. 

Saddler Bogart, Mo. 

Wagoner Coffey ville, Kan. 



TROOPERS 



Alexis, George D., New 
Orleans, La. 

Arendt, Henry J., Ho- 
boken, N. J. 

Armstrong, Chas. M. 

Adkins, Joseph R. 

Bates, William H. 

Barrowe, Hallett A. 

Bawcom, Joseph L., Bisbee, 
Ariz. 

Bennett, Horton A., Tula- 
rosa, N. M. 

Brito, Frank C, Pinos Al- 
tos, N. M. 

Brito, Jose, Los Angeles, 
Cal. 

Brush, Charles A., Han- 
ford, Cal. 

Bassage, Albert C, Corn- 
ing, N. Y. 

Casad, Charles D., Mesilla, 
N. M. 

Cloud, William. 

Crockett, Joseph B., To- 
peka, Kan. 



Coe, George M., Albu- 
querque, N. M. 

Clark, Frank M., Hiawatha, 
Kan. 

Davis, Henry C, Santa Fe, 
N. M. 

Dolan, Thomas P., Pinos 
Altos, N. M. 

Denny, Robert W., Raton, 
N. M. 

Duke, Henry K., Lipscomb, 
Tex. 

Evans, Evan, Gallup, N. M. 

Fennel, William A., Re- 
union, Md. 

Flynn, Joseph F., Albu- 
querque, N. M. 

Geiger, Percy A., Durango, 
Col. 

Gooch, John R., Santa Fe, 

Groves, Oscar W., Raton, 
N. M. 

Goodrich, Ben Hedric. 

Giller, Alfred C, Topeka, 
Kan. 



Muster-Out Roll 



269 



Hermeyer, Ernest H., Ros- 

well, N. M. 
Hickey, Walter, Wishua, 

N. H. 
Hogan, Michael. 
Jones, William H., Raton, 

N. M. 
Jopling, Cal., La Luz, N. M. 
King, Harry B., Raton, 

N. M. 
Larsen, Louis. 
Love, William J., Jersey 

City, N. J. 
McCoy, John, Monrovia, 

Cal. 
McGowan, Alexander, Gal- 
lup, N. M. 
Martin, John, Decanter, 

111. 
Miller, Edwin H., Junction 

City, Kan. 
Miller, David R. 
Miller, Jacob H., Needles, 

Cal. 
Morgan, U. S. Grant, Du- 

rango. Col. 
Morris, Ben F. T., Raton, 

N. M. 
Moore, Roscoe E., Raton, 

N. M. 
North, Franklin H., 2 W. 

35th St., Nev^ York City. 
O'Dell, William W., Park- 

ersburg, W. Va. 
Peabody, Harry, Raton, 

N. M. 
Pierce, Edv^rard, Chicago, 

111. 



Price, Stewart R., Platts- 
burg. Mo. 

Rafalowitz, Hyman, Phila- 
delphia, Pa. 

Roberts, John P., Clayton, 
N. M. 

Reisig, Max, Y. M. C. A., 
St. Louis, Mo. 

Raulett, Charles, New Or- 
leans, La. 

Reidy, John, Ottawa, Kan. 

Shornhorst, Carl J., Jr. 

Schafer, George, Pinos Al- 
tos, N. M. 

Sennett, Lee, Marysville, 
W. Va. 

Storms, Morris J., Center- 
point, Tex. 

Spencer, Edward John, 
Clay County, Tex. 

Tait, John H. 

Temple, Frank, Lafayette, 
Ind. 

Torbett,John T., Yale, Kan. 

Trkz, Wm. H., Windsor, 
Conn. 

Townsend, Chas. M., Fari- 
bault, Minn. 

Twyman, John L., Raton, 
N. M. 

Thompson, George. 

Williams, Thomas C. 

Wiley, Harry B., Santa Fe, 
N. M. 

Wisenberg, Roy O., Raton, 
N. M. 

Zeigler, Daniel J., Como, 
Mont. 



270 The Rough Riders 



DISCHARGED 
Brown, Harry R Private Tampa, Fla. 

Discharged at Tampa, Fla., Aug. 5, 1898, per S. O. 153 A. G. O., 
dated June 30, 1898, and final statements forwarded to A. G. O.. 
Washington, D. C, Aug. 3, 1898. 

Young, Howard G. . .Private 

Discharge to date from Aug. 23, 1898. 



TRANSFERRED 
Girard, Alfred O ist Sergeant 

Transferred, July 18, 1898, to 2d Army Corps, Camp Alger, per tele- 
graphic instructions A. G. O., Washington, D. C. 

Cowdin, Elliot C Corporal 

Transferred to Troop L ist U. S. Vol. Cav., to date June '7, VsgS.'per 
verbal order Reg. Commander. 

Fish, Hamilton, Jr. . .Sergeant 

Transferred to Troop L ist U. S. Vol. Cav., June 7, 1898, perverba'l 
order Reg. Commander. Killed in battle, June 24, 1898. 

Wilson, Charles A. . .Private 

Transferred to Hosp. Corps ist U. S. Vol. Cav., June 7, 1898,' verbal 
order Reg. Commander. 

Greenway, John C. . .2d Lieutenant 

Promoted 1st Lieut. Troop A ist U. S. Vol. Cav. 

Bailey, Harry C Private 

Transferred back to Troop G, Sept. i, 1898, per verbal order Reg. 
Commander. 

DIED 
Tiffany, William 2d Lieutenant 



Died Aug. 26, 



DESERTED 
Saville, Michael Private 

Deserted from Camp Wikoff, L. I., Aug. 20, 1898. 

Brown, John Private 

Deserted while en route from Camp Wood, San Antonio, Tex., to camp 
at Tampa, Fla., June 3, 1898. 

Farrell, Fred. P Private 

Deserted while en route from Camp Wood, San Antonio, Tex., to camp 
at Tampa, Fla., June 3, 1898. 



Muster-Out Roll 271 

TROOP K 

Captain Woodbury Kane 

Woodbury Kane, Captain. 319 Fifth Ave, New York City. 
Joseph A. Carr, ist Lieut. 2127 R. St., Washington, D. C. 
Horace K. Devereux, 2d 
Lieutenant Colorado Springs, Col. 

Wounded at San Juan, July i, 1898; forearm and arm; Mauser rifle. 

Frederik K.Lie,ist Serg't.Orgun P. O., N. M. 
Thaddeus Higgins, Serg't.210 W. 104th St., N. Y. City. 
Reginald Ronalds, Serg't.. Knickerbocker Club, N. Y. City. 
Sam'I G. Devore, Serg't. ..Wheeling, W. Va. 

Wounded at El Poso, July ist; left forearm; shrapnel. 

Philip K. Sweet, Sergeant.226 W. 121st St., N. Y. City. 

Wm. J. Breen, Sergeant. .510 E. 144th St., New York City. 

CraigW.Wadsworth,Sergt,Geneseo, N. Y. 

Henry W. Buel, Serg't. . .319 Fifth Ave., New York City. 

James B. Tailor, Corporal.Ardsley on Hudson, N. Y. 

Jos. S. Stevens, Corporal.. Narragansett Ave., Newport, R.L 

Maxwell Norman, Corp'l. Newport, R. L 

Edwin Coakley, Corporal. Prescott, Ariz. 

Geo. Kerr, Jr., Corporal. . East Downington, Pa. 

Henry S. Van Schaick, 
Corporal 100 Broadway, New York City. 

Fred'k Herrig, Corporal. .Pleasant Valley, Kalispel, Flat 

Head Co., Mont. 

Oscar Land, Trumpeter. ..720 S. 8th St., Denver, Col. 

George W. Knoblauch, 
Trumpeter 205 W. 57th St., New York City. 

Benj. A. Long, Saddler. ..New York City. 
Wounded at El Poso, July ist; left thigh. 

Thos. G. Bradley, Farrier. Potomac, Montgomery Co., Md. 

George T. Crucius, Black- 
smith 50 Amanda St., Montgom'y, Ala. 

Lee Burdwell, Wagoner .. Langtry, Tex. 



272 



The Rough Riders 



TROOPERS 



Adams, John H., Selma, 
Ala. 

Wounded, July ist. 

Armstrong, James T. 
Batchelder, Wallace N., 

Chester, Pa. 
Bell, Sherman, Colorado 

Springs, Col. 
Bernard, William C, Las 

Vegas, N. M. 
Bump, Arthur L., New 

London, O. 

Slightly wounded, July ist. 

Cameron, Charles H., Mc- 
Donald, Pa. 

Campbell, Douglass. 

Cash, Walter S., Colorado 
Springs, Col. 

Wounded, July ist; arm, slight; 
Mauser rifle. 

Cooke, Henry B. 

Carroll, John F., Hillsboro, 
Tex. 

Cartmell, Nathaniel M., 
Lexington, Va. 

Channing, Roscoe A., 34 
Park Place, N. Y. City. 

Clagett, Jesse C, Moters Sta- 
tion, Frederick Co., Md. 

Corbe, Max C, El Paso, 
Tex. 

Coville, Allen M., Topeka, 
Kan. 

Crowninshield, Francis B., 
Marblehead, Mass. 

Daniels, Benjamin F., Col- 
orado Springs, Col. 



Davis, John, care W.S.Dick- 
inson, Tarpon Sp'gs, Fla. 

Easton, Stephen, Santa Fe, 
N. M. 

Eberman, Edwin. 

Emerson, Edwin, Jr., "Col- 
lier's Weekly," New York 
City. 

Flemming, Clarence A. 

Fletcher, Henry P., Cham- 
bersburg, Franklin Co., Pa. 

Folk, Theodore, Oklahoma, 
City, O. T. 

Freeman, Elisha L., Burden, 
Kan. 

Holden, Prince A., Gray- 
son Co., Tex. 

Hulme, Robert A., El Reno, 
O. T. 

James, William F., San An- 
tonio, Tex. 

Jordan, Andrew M., Rossa, 
Tex. 

Kania, Frank, Jamestown, 
N. D. 

Langdon, Jesse D., Fargo, 
N. D. 

Marshall, Creighton, 1807 
G St., N. W., Washing- 
ton, D. C. 

Maverick, Lewis, San An- 
tonio, Tex. 

McGinty, William, Stillwa- 
ter, O. T. 

McKoy, William J., Osh- 
kosh, Wis. 



Muster-Out Roll 



273 



Mitchell, Mason, Lambs' 
Club, New York City. 

Wounded at El Poso, July ist; 
left arm, slight; shrapnel. 

Mitchell,William H., Salem, 

Mass. 
Montgomery, Lawrence N., 

Hempstead, Tex. 
Nicholson, Charles P., 1617 

John St., Baltimore, Md. 
Norris, Edmund S., Guthrie, 

O. T. 
Poey, Alfred. 
Pollak, Albin J. 
Quaid, William, Newburg, 

N. Y. 
Robinson, Kenneth D., 55 

Liberty St., N. Y. City. 

Wounded on July ist; right 
side, severe; Mauser rifle. 

Reed, Colton, San Antonio, 
Tex. 

Smith, Fred'k, Guthrie, O.T. 

Smith, George L., Frank- 
fort, Mich. 

Smith, Jos. S., 1322 Brown 
St., Philadelphia, Pa. 

Smith, Clarke T.,2008 Wal- 
lace St., Philadelphia, Pa. 

Stephens, Oregon, Purdy, 
L T. 



Stockton, Richard, 218 W. 

Jersey St., Elizabeth, N.J. 
Test, Clarence L., Austin, 

Tex. 

Transferred from 3d Penn. Inf. 
and reported for duty with 
troop at Montauk Point, Aug. 
2Sth 

Thorp, Henry, Southamp- 
ton, L. L 

Toy, J. Frederick, 602 S. 
42d St., Philadelphia, Pa. 

Transferred from 3d Penn. Inf. 
and reported for duty with 
troop at Montauk Point, Aug. 
2Sth. 

Tudor, William, 37 Brimer, 

St., Boston, Mass. 
Venable, Warner M., Ste- 

phenville, Tex. 
Weitzel, John F., care 

Windsor Hotel, Newkirk, 

O. T. 
Wiberg, Axel E. 
Wilson, Frank M., Guthrie, 

O. T. 
Woodward, John A., Taylor, 

Tex. 
Wright, Grant, Cold Sp'gs, 

N. Y. 
Young, James E., 628 W. 

37th St., Los Angeles, Cal. 



DISCHARGED 

Maloon, Winthrop L. Private. 



Discharged per S. O. No. 141, A. G. O. Dated June 6th. 

McMasters, Fred'k D.. Private 

Discharged per S. O. No. 178, A. G. O. Dated July 30th, Washing- 
ton, D. C. 

Ferguson, Robt. M. . .Sergeant 55 Liberty St., N.Y. City. 

Discharged Aug. 10, 1898. 



274 The Rough Riders 

Worden. John L Private 27W.43dSt., N.Y.City. 

Discharged by way of favor per telegraphic order from Assistant Sec- 
retary of War. Dated Aug. 15th, Washington, D. C. 

Cosby, Arthur F. . , .Private 

Discharged per S. O. No. 103, A. G. O., Aug., 17th, Washington, D. C, 
to enable the soldier to accept a commission. Wounded, July ist; 
right hand. 

Lee, Joseph J Private Knoxville, Md. 

Discharged per S. O. No. 205, A. G. O., Washington, D. C, Aug. 31st. 

Babcock, Campbell E. Private The Plaza, Chicago, HI. 

Discharged, Sept. 5th, to accept commission. 

TRANSFERRED 
Duran, Joseph L. . . . Private Santa Fe, N. M. 

Transferred to Troop H, this regiment, July isth, 

Brandon, Perry H. . Private Douglass, Kan. 

Transferred to Troop D, this regiment July 29th. 

David M. Goodrich. . ist Lieut.. . . Akron, O. 

Transferred' from Troop D, this regiment, Aug. nth. Transferred to 
Troop D, this regiment, Sept. 5th. 

DIED 
Haywood, Henry. . . . Sergeant. . . .PoliceDept.,N. Y. City. 

Abdomen; Mauser rifle; killed, July 2d. Wounded, July ist; died in 
Division Hospital, Cuba, July 2, 1898, from bullet wound received 
July 1st. 

Ives, Gerard M Private New York. 

Died at his home, 338 W. 71st St., New York City (date not known), 
from typhoid fever. 

Tiffany, William. . . . Lieutenant. . New York City. 

Died of fever. 

DESERTED 
Staley, Frank Private 

Deserted from troop at San Antonio, Tex., May ist. 

Curzon Private ■> 

Deserted from detachment at Tampa, Fla., June 13th. 

PROMOTED 
Jenkins, Micah J. . . . Major Youngs Island, S. C. 

Promoted to Major, Aug. 11, 1898. 



Muster-Out Roll 275 

TROOP L 
Captain Richard C. Day 
Richard C. Day Captain Vinita I T 

Shot through left shoulder on line of duty at San Tuan " rJ>ff <:i,„„i 
der and arm, severe; Mauser rifle. ^ " ^''°"'" 

John R. Thomas ist Lieutenant. . .Muscogee. I T 

rigkTeg"'^ ''' "^^* ^°^^' ^^^ ^* ^^' Guasimas, June 24th. G. S. 

^IT^ ^\ST'\- • • • ^"^ Lieutenant. . . San Antonio, Tex. 
Elhanan W. Buckhn. ist Sergeant. . . . Jamestown, N. Y 

Jerome WHenderliderSergeant Saranac, Mich ' 

w '^",' ¥■ ^^'""''- • -Sergeant Vinita, I. T 

Wounded at San Juan, July i, 1898, in line of duty. Leg; Mauser rifle. 

•^ w^-/.""l- ••;•••• Sergeant Vinita, I. T. 

Wounded at San Juan, July ist, in line of duty. Leg; Alauser rifle. 

Wm. W. Carpenter. . Sergeant Vinita I T 

^sTrml"' ^'" ^"'"' ^"'^ '"'• '" ^'"^ °* ^"ty- Left thigh. Mau. 

James McKay Sergeant Vinita I T 

Dillwyn M. Bell Sergeant Guthrie, O.T. 

baU"s?rg?t;'^hfS!"* °' ^'^" '' ^' ^°^°' ^^'y -^- C-*-'- 

James E. McGuire. . .Sergeant Chelsea I T 

^w'^^?- ^^^''^^- ■ • Corporal Muscogee, I.T 

M^uter HflS ''°'°' ^"'^ '' ''''• '^ ^'"^ °^ ^^'y- ^A' ^^ot, slight; 

HJ" ^- L>avis Corporal Vinita, L T 

Wounded at San Juan, July i, 1898. Right leg and arm; Mauser rifle. 

^^w"^l 9' ■^^^'^- • • • Corporal Sardis, Ark. 

Wounded at San Juan, July i, 1898. 

Bud Parnell Corporal Muscogee, I. T 

Jo^,fph J- Roger Corporal Tillou, Ark. 

Wounded at San Juan, July i, 1898. Abdomen and arm; Mauser rifle. 

Geo. B. Dunnigan. . . Corporal Vinita I T 

MaynardR. Williams. Corporal Fairland, IT 

S.l'°^9: Cowdin. . . . Corporal New York City. 

Mike Kinney Blacksmith Inilay Mich 

J°S" R; Ke^" Farrier Maxwell, Ont. 

Wounded at Las Guasimas. June 24th. G. S. left shoulder and lungs. 



276 The Rough Riders 

Nicholas H. Cochran .Wagoner Vinita, I. T, 

Guy M. Babcock Saddler Cherry ville, Kan. 

Thomas F. Meagher. Trumpeter "Muscogee, I. T. 

Wounded at Las Guasimas, June 24th. G. S. left forearm. 

Frank R. McDonald. Trumpeter Oolagah, I. T. 

Wounded at San Juan, July 1, 1898. Head; Mauser rifle. 

TROOPERS 

Adair, John M., Clareniore, Hawkins, Chas. D., Vinita, 

I. T. I. T. 

Benson, Victor H. Heagert, Rudolph, Vinita, 

Carey, Oren E., Clonau, I. T. 

la. Holderman, Bert. T., Ar- 

Chilcoot, Frederick, How- topa, Kan. 

els, Neb. Hughes, Frank, Vinita, I.T. 

Cook, James, Cherokee City, Hughes, William E., Vinita, 

Ark. I. T. 

Cruse, James, St. Joe, Ark. Isbell, Thomas J., Vinita, 

Culver, Ed., Muscogee, I.T. I. T. 

Wounded at Las Guasimas, June Wounded at Las Guasimas, June 

24th. G. S. breast. 25th. G. S. neck, hip, and 

Davis^ James C, Wagoner, j^^^'^^^^j^ y-^,^^ I T. 

Damet,' John P., Alexander, J°^"^ W'"'^"" ^" ^'"'^" 
g. x-^ -^ ville. Mo. 

Wounded at Las Guasimas, June Kinkade, Elyah S., MUSCO- 
24th. G. S. left shoulder. gee, I. T. 

Dennis, David C, Nelson, Knox, Robert G., Clinton, 

Mo. La. 

Dobson, William H., Mus- Lawrence, Richard, La 

cogee, L T. Porte, Ind. 

Ennis, Richard L., Cornell, Lane, Edward K., Chetopa, 

111. Kan. 

Evans, James R., Baldwin, Lane, Sanford J., Saupulpa, 

Ark. I. T. 

Gilmore, Maurice E., Mus- Lentz, Edward, Bowling 

cogee, I. T. Green, O. 

Haley, Robert M., Wagon- Lewis, Frank A., Newark, 

er, I. T. N. J. 



Muster-Out Roll 



277 



Little, Rollie L.,West Fork, 
Ark. 

McDonald, Asa W., Bear- 
ing Cross, Ark. 

McCamish, Andrew L., 
Bethel, Kan. 

Miller, John S., Garrison, 
Neb. 

Miller, Boot, Chelsea, I. T. 

Moore, John J., Vinita, I.T. 

Oskison, Richard L., Vinita, 
I. T. 

Wounded at San Juan, July ist. 
Left leg; Mauser rifle. 

Owens, Edward L,, Vinita, 

I. T. 
Parker, Ora E., Dickins, 

la. 

Wounded near Santiago de Cuba, 

July I, 2, or 3, 1898. Right 
thigh, severe; shrapnel. 

Philpot, Leigh T., Bryson, 

Ky. 
Pee, Nathaniel M., Adair, 

I. T. 

Wounded at Las Guasimas, June 
24th. G. S. foot. 

Price, Benjamin W., Eu- 
faula, I. T. 

Pulley, William O., Marion, 
111. 

Rich, Allen K., Fort Gib- 
son, I. T. 

Robertson, Geo, W., Mus- 
cogee, I, T. 

Robinson, Frank P., Bor- 
bora, Kan. 

DISCHARGED 

Hutchinson, Chas. A. Private 

Price, Walter W Private 



Russell, Daniel, Goodland, 

I. T. 
Scobey, Arthur E., Willis 

Point, Tex. 

Wounded at San Juan Hill, June 
I, 1898. Right hand; Mauser 
rifle. 

Sharp, Walter L., Chicago, 

111. 
Skelton, James W., Trinity 

Mills, Tex. 
Smith, Bert., Vinita, I. T. 
Smith, Sylvester S., Vinita, 

I. T. 
Stef ens, Luke B., Rio Vista, 

I. T. 
Stidham, Theodore E., Eu- 

faula, I. T. 
Swearinger, George, Mays- 

ville. Mo. 
Taylor, Warren P., Hills- 

boro, Tex. 
Thompson, Sylvester V. 

Wounded at San Juan, July i, 
1898. Left leg and arm; Mau- 
ser rifle. 

Wetmore, Robert C, Mont- 

clair, N. J. 
Whitney, Schuyler C, Pryor 

Creek, I. T. 

Wounded at Las Guasimas, June 
24th. G. S. neck. 

Wilkins, Geo.W., Vinita,I.T. 

Wilson, James E., Madrid, 
Mo. 

Winn, Arthur N., Musco- 
gee, I. T. 



27^ The Rough Riders 



Hayes, Frank P ist Sergeant , 

Discharged, June 24, 1898, to enable him to accept commission as 2d 
Lieut, in ist U. S. Vol. Cav. 

TRANSFERRED 
Robert, William J. . . Private „ 

Transferred to Troop M, June 7, 1898, by order Col. Wood. 

Byrne, John Sergeant Vinita, I. T. 

Transferred to Troop F, July 10, 1898, by order Col. Wood. 

DIED 
Capron, Allyn K. . . .'Captain Fort Sill, Okla. 

Killed at battle of Las Guasimas, June 24, 1898. G. S. lungs. 

Fish, Hamilton Sergeant New York City. 

Killed at battle of Las Guasimas, June 24, 1898. G. S. heart 

Dawson, Tilden W. . Private Vinita, I. T. 

Killed at battle of Las Guasimas, June 24, 1898. G. S. head. 

Santo. William T. . . .Private Chouteau, I. T. 

Killed at battle of San Juan, July i, 1898. Mauser rifle. 

Hendricks, Milo A. . .Private Muscogee, I. T. 

Mortally wounded at battle of San Juan, July ist; died in hospital, 
July 6, 1898. Mauser rifle. 

Enyart, Silas R Private Sapulpa, I. T. 

Mortally wounded at San Juan, July ist; died in hospital, July 6, 1898. 

TROOP M 

Captain Robert H. Bruce 

Robert H. Bruce. . . . Captain Mineola, Tex. 

Ode C. Nichols ist Lieutenant. . .Durant, I. T. 

Albert S. Johnson. . . 2d Lieutenant. . . OklahomaCity,O.T 

Harry E. Berner. ... ist Sergeant Durant, L T. 

Joseph L. Smith Q--M. Sergeant. .Caddo, L T. 

William E. Lloyd. . . .Sergeant Durant, I. T. 

Fred'k E. Nichols. , . Sergeant Purcell, L T. 

Morency A. Hawkins Sergeant Tioga, Tex. 

Wilbert L. Poole. . . . Sergeant Durant, I. T. 

Otis B. Weaver Sergeant Mt. Vernon, Tex. 

Henry C. Foley Sergeant Muscogee, L T. 



Muster-Out Roll 



279 



Samuel Downing Corporal Atoka, I. T, 

Charles S. Lynch Corporal Caddo, I. T. 

John N. Jackson Corporal Caddo, I. T. 

Frank U. Talman Corporal S. McAlester, I. T. 

Hiram S. Creech Corporal Durant, I. T. 

Charles J. Fandru. . , Corporal Caddo, I. T. 

Theodore E. Schulz, .Corporal Tampa, Fla. 

William G. Jones Corporal Ardmore, I. T. 

Frank Marion Trumpeter Muscogee, I. T. 

Charles J. Hokey Trumpeter Krebs, I. T. 

John McMuUen Wagoner Ardmore, I. T. 

John Hall Farrier Durant, I. T. 

Cragg Parsons Blacksmith Ardmore, I. T. 

Luther M. Kiethly. . .Saddler Hartshorne, L T. 

Samuel Young Chief Cook Caddo, L T. 



Allaun, Jacob, Sapulpa,I.T. 

Byrd, Samuel J. W., Mus- 
cogee, L T. 

Boydstun, John F., Caddo, 
I. T. 

Barlow, John W., Caddo, 
L T. 

Barrington, John P., Ard- 
more, L T. 

Baird, Thompson M., 
Thurber, Tex. 

iBrierty, Thomas, Tampa, 
Fla. 

Butler, Peter L., Kiowa, 
L T. 

Beal,AndyR., Durant, L T. 

Bruce, Peter R., Wagoner, 
L T. 

Brown, Leon, Ardmore, LT. 

Barney, Leland, Ardmore, 
L T. 



TROOPERS 

Burks, Jesse S., Ardmore, 
L T. 

Case, George, Durant, L T. 

Calhoun, Wesley, Durant, 
L T. 

Carter, Arthur E., Ard- 
more, I. T. 

Garden, Horace W., Ard- 
more, L T. 

Cox, Walter, Durant, L T. 

Cooper, Bud G., Muscogee, 
L T. 

Dorell, Chas., Vinita, L T. 

Duping, Joseph, Muscogee, 
L T. 

Flying, Crawford D., Mus- 
cogee, I. T. 

Fairman, Chas. E., Ard- 
more, L T. 

Griffith, Ezra E., Sapulpa, 
L T. 



28o 



The Rough Riders 



Garland, George W., Ard- 
more, I. T. 

Hall, James T., Wagoner, 
I. T. 

Hawes, Frederick W., Den- 
nison, Tex. 

Houchin, Willis C., Durant, 
I. T. 

Hamilton, Troy, Harts- 
horne, I. T. 

Howell, William, Musco- 
gee, I. T. 

Harris, Chester, Muscogee, 
I. T. 

Hoffman, Geo. B., Somer- 
ville, N. J. 

Johnson, Bankston, Caddo, 
I. T. 

Johnson, Charles L., Ard- 
more, I. T. 

Johnson, Gordon, Birming- 
ham, Ala. 

Jones, Charles L., McAles- 
ter, I. T. 

Keithly, Ora E., Hartshorne, 
I. T. 

Kings, John, Mcx\lester, 
I. T. 

Kearns, Edward L., Tampa, 
Fla. 

Mitchell, William, Wagon- 
er, I. T. 

Madden, Chas. E., Brooken, 
I. T. 

Murphy, William S., Cad- 
do, I. T. 

McPherren, Chas. E., Cad- 
do, I. T. 

Maytubby, Bud, Caddo, I.T. 



McDaniel, Thos. E., Mus- 
cogee, I. T. 

McPherson, Chas. E., Cad- 
do, I. T. 

Morrell, Robert W., Eliza- 
beth, N. J. 

Owens, John M., Oologah, 
I. T. 

Pipkins, Virgil A., Brook- 
en, I. T. 

Rouse, John L., Durant, I. T. 

Rose, Lewis W., Los An- 
geles, Cal. 

Russell, Walter L., Caddo, 
I- T. 

Rynerson, Benj. A., Du- 
rant, L T. 

Reynolds, Benj. F., Ard- 
more, I. T. 

Ross, William E., Ardmore, 
L T. 

Roberts, William J., Vinita, 
L T. 

Sloane, Samuel P., So. Mc- 
Alester, L T. 

Sykes, Marion, Muscogee, 
I. T. 

Stewart, Henry J., Caddo, 
L T. 

Thomas,JesseC., Caddo, LT. 

Tyler, Edwin, Ardmore, LT. 

Vickers, John W., So. Mc- 
Alester, I. T. 

Williams, Benjamin H., So. 
McAlester, I. T. 

Williams, George W., Ard- 
more, L T. 

Wolfe, John W., Ardmore, 
L T. 



Muster-Out Roll 281 

Webster, David, Durant, Woog, Benjamin, B.,Wash- 

I. T. ington, D. C. 

Wagner, John D., Caddo, de Zychlinski, William T., 

I. T. Bismarck, N. D. 

TRANSFERRED 
Lane, Sanford G Trooper Sapulpa, I. T. 

Transferred to Troop L ist U. S. V. C, June 8, 1898, per verbal order 
Reg. Com. 

DIED OF DISEASE 
Kyle, Yancy Trooper McAlester, I. T. 

Died of typhoid fever at Tampa, July 15, 1898. Final statements ren- 
dered and settled per Capt. Bruce. 

As said above, this is not a complete list of the 
wounded, or even of the dead, among the troopers. 
Moreover a number of officers and men died from 
fever soon after the regiment was mustered out. 
Twenty-eight field and line officers landed in Cuba 
on June 22d; ten of them were killed or wounded 
during the nine days following. Of the five regi- 
ments of regular cavalry in the division one, the 
Tenth, lost eleven officers; none of the others lost 
more than six. The loss of the Rough Riders in 
enlisted men was heavier than that of any other 
regiment in the cavalry division. Of the nine in- 
fantry regiments in Kent's division, one, the Sixth, 
lost eleven officers; none of the others as many as 
we did. None of the nine suffered as heavy a loss 
in enlisted men, as they were not engaged at Las 
Guasimas. 

No other regiment in the Spanish-American War 
suffered as heavy a loss as the First United States 
Volunteer Cavalry. 



282 The Rough Riders 



APPENDIX B 

[Before it was sent, this letter was read to and 
approved by every officer of the regiment who had 
served through the Santiago campaign.] 

[Copy.] 

Camp Wikoff, 
September lo, i8p8 
To THE Secretary of War. 

Sir: In answer to the circular issued by com- 
mand of Major-General Shafter under date of Sep- 
tember 8, 1898, containing a request for informa- 
tion by the Adjutant-General of September 7th, I 
have the honor to report as follows : 

I am a little in doubt whether the fact that on 
certain occasions my regiment suffered for food, 
etc., should be put down to an actual shortage of sup- 
plies or to general defects in the system of adminis- 
tration. Thus, when the regiment arrived in Tam- 
pa, after a four days' journey by cars from its camp 
at San Antonio, it received no food whatever for 
twenty-four hours, and as the travel rations had 
been completely exhausted, food for several of the 
troops was purchased by their officers, who, of 
course, have not been reimbursed by the Govern- 
ment. In the same way we were short one or two 
meals at the time of embarking at Port Tampa on 
the transport; but this I think was due, not to a 



Appendix B 283 

failure in the quantity of supplies, but to the lack 
of system in embarkation. 

As with the other regiments, no information was 
given in advance what transports we should take, 
or how we should proceed to get aboard, nor did 
any one exercise any supervision over the embarka- 
tion. Each regimental commander, so far as I 
know, was left to find out as best he could, after 
he was down at the dock, what transport had not 
been taken, and then to get his regiment aboard it, 
if he was able, before some other regiment got it. 
Our regiment was told to go to a certain switch, 
and take a train for Port Tampa at twelve o'clock, 
midnight. The train never came. After three 
hours of waiting we were sent to another switch, 
and finally at six o'clock in the morning got pos- 
session of some coal-cars and came down in them. 
When we reached the quay where the embarkation 
was proceeding, everything was in utter confusion. 
The quay was piled with stores and swarming with 
thousands of men of different regiments, besides 
onlookers, etc. The commanding general, when we 
at last found him, told Colonel Wood and myself 
that he did not know what ship we were to embark 
on, and that we must find Colonel Humphrey, the 
Quartermaster-General. Colonel Humphrey was 
not in his office, and nobody knew where he was. 
The commanders of the different regiments were 
busy trying to find him, while their troops waited in 
the trains, so as to discover the ships to which they 



284 The Rough Riders 

were allotted — some of these ships being at the dock 
and some in mid-stream. After a couple of hours' 
search, Colonel Wood found Colonel Humphrey 
and was allotted a ship. Immediately afterward I 
found that it had already been allotted to two other 
regiments. It was then coming to the dock. Col- 
onel Wood boarded it in mid-stream to keep posses- 
sion, while I double-quicked the men down from the 
cars and got there just ahead of the other two regi- 
ments. One of these regiments, I was afterward in- 
formed, spent the next thirty-six hours in cars in 
consequence. We suffered nothing beyond the loss 
of a couple of meals, which, it seems to me, can 
hardly be put down to any failure in the quantity 
of supplies furnished to the troops. 

We were two weeks on the troop-ship Yucatan, 
and as we were given twelve days' travel rations, 
we of course fell short toward the end of the trip, 
but eked things out with some of our field rations 
and troop stuff. The quality of the travel rations 
given to us was good, except in the important item 
of meat. The canned roast beef is worse than a 
failure as part of the rations, for in effect it amounts 
to reducing the rations by just so much, as a great 
majority of the men find it uneatable. It was coarse, 
stringy, tasteless, and very disagreeable in appear- 
ance, and so unpalatable tliat the effort to eat it 
made some of the men sick. Most of the men pre- 
ferred to be hungry rather than eat it. If cooked in 
a stew with plenty of onions and potatoes — i.e., if 



Appendix B 285 

only one ingredient in a dish with other more sa- 
vory ingredients — it could be eaten, especially if 
well salted and peppered; but, as usual (what I 
regard as a great mistake), no salt was issued with 
the travel rations, and of course no potatoes and 
onions. 

There were no cooking facilities on the trans- 
port. When the men obtained any, it was by 
bribing the cook. Toward the last, when they be- 
gan to draw on the field rations, they had to eat 
the bacon raw. On the return trip the same diffi- 
culty in rations obtained — i.e., the rations were short 
because the men could not eat the canned roast beef, 
and had no salt. We purchased of the ship's sup- 
plies some flour and pork and a little rice for the 
men, so as to relieve the shortage as much as pos- 
sible, and individual sick men were helped from 
private sources by officers, who themselves ate what 
they had purchased in Santiago. As nine-tenths 
of the men were more or less sick, the unattractive- 
ness of the travel rations was doubly unfortunate. 
It would have been an excellent thing for their 
health if we could have had onions and potatoes, 
and means for cooking them. Moreover, the water 
was very bad, and sometimes a cask was struck 
that was positively undrinkable. The lack of ice 
for the weak and sickly men was very much felt. 
Fortunately there was no epidemic, for there was 
not a place on the ship where patients could have 
been Isolated. 



286 The Rough Riders 

During the month following the landing of the 
army in Cuba the food supplies were generally 
short in quantity, and in quality were never such 
as were best suited to men undergoing severe hard- 
ships and great exposure in an unhealthy tropical 
climate. The rations were, I understand, the same 
as those used in the Klondike, In this connection, 
I call especial attention to the report of Captain 
Brown, made by my orders when I was Brigade- 
Commander, and herewith appended, I also call 
attention to the report of my own Quartermaster, 
Usually we received full rations of bacon and hard- 
tack. The hardtack, however, was often mouldy, 
so that parts of cases, and even whole cases, could 
not be used. The bacon was usually good. But 
bacon and hardtack make poor food for men toiling 
and fighting in trenches under the mid-summer sun 
of the tropics. The ration of coffee was often short, 
and that of sugar generally so; we rarely got any 
vegetables. Under these circumstances the men 
lost strength steadily, and as the fever speedily at- 
tacked them, they suffered from being reduced to 
a bacon and hardtack diet. So much did the shortage 
of proper food tell upon their health that again and 
again officers were compelled to draw upon their 
private purses, or upon the Red Cross Society, to 
make good the deficiency of the Government sup- 
ply. Again and again we sent down improvised 
pack-trains composed of officers' horses, of captured 
Spanish cavalry ponies, or of mules which had been 



Appendix B 287 

shot or abandoned but were cured by our men. 
These expeditions — sometimes under the chaplain, 
sometimes under the Quartermaster, sometimes 
under myself, and occasionally under a trooper — 
would go to the sea-coast or to the Red Cross 
headquarters, or, after the surrender, into the city 
of Santiago, to get food both for the well and the 
sick. 

The Red Cross Society rendered invaluable 
aid. For example, on one of these expeditions I 
personally brought up 600 pounds of beans; on 
another occasion I personally brought up 500 
pounds of rice, 800 pounds of cornmeal, 200 pounds 
of sugar, 100 pounds of tea, 100 pounds of oatmeal, 
5 barrels of potatoes, and two of onions, with cases 
of canned soup and condensed milk for the sick in 
hospitals. Every scrap of the food thijs brought 
up was eaten with avidity by the soldiers, and put 
new heart and strength into them. It was only 
our constant care of the men in this way that en- 
abled us to keep them in any trim at all. As for 
the sick in the hospital, unless we were able from 
outside sources to get them such simple delicacies 
as rice and condensed milk, they usually had the 
alternative of eating salt pork and hardtack or going 
without. 

After each fight we got a good deal of food 
from the Spanish camps in the way of beans, peas, 
and rice, together with green coffee, all of which 
the men used and relished greatly. In some re- 



288 The Rough Riders 

spects the Spanish rations were preferable to ours, 
notably in the use of rice. After we had been ashore 
a month the supplies began to come in in abundance, 
and we then fared very well. Up to that time the 
men were under-fed^ during the very weeks when 
the heaviest drain was being made upon their vi- 
tality, and the deficiency was only partially supplied 
through the aid of the Red Cross, and out of the 
officers' pockets and the pockets of various New 
York friends who sent us money. Before, during, 
and immediately after the fights of June 24th and 
July I St, we were very short of even the bacon and 
hardtack. About July 14th, when the heavy rains 
interrupted communication, we were threatened 
with famine, as we were informed that there was 
not a day's supply of provisions in advance nearer 
than the sea-coast; and another twenty- four hours' 
rain would have resulted in a complete breakdown 
of communications, so that for several days we 
should have been reduced to a diet of mule-meat 
and mangos. At this time, in anticipation of such 
a contingency, by foraging and hoarding we got a 
little ahead, so that when our supplies were cut 
down for a day or two we did not suffer much, 
and were even able to furnish a little aid to the 
less fortunate First Illinois Regiment, which was 
camped next to us. Members of the Illinois Regi- 
ment were ofifering our men $1 apiece for hard- 
tacks. 

I wish to bear testimony to the energy and ca- 



Appendix B 289 

pacity of Colonel Weston, the Commissary-General 
with the expedition. If it had not been for his 
active aid, we should have fared worse than 
we did. All that he could do for us, he most cheer- 
fully did. 

As regards the clothing, I have to say : As to 
the first issue, the blue shirts were excellent of 
their kind, but altogether too hot for Cuba. They 
are just what I used to wear in Montana. The 
leggings were good; the shoes were very good; 
the undershirts not very good, and the drawers bad 
— being of heavy, thick canton flannel, difficult to 
wash, and entirely unfit for a tropical climate. The 
trousers were poor, wearing badly. We did not get 
any other clothing until we were just about to 
leave Cuba, by which time most of the men were in 
tatters ; some being actually barefooted, while others 
were in rags, or dressed partly in clothes captured 
from the Spaniards, who were much more suitably 
clothed for the climate and place than we were. 
The ponclios were poor, being inferior to the Span- 
ish rain-coats which we captured. 

As to the medical matters, I invite your atten- 
tion, not only to thd report of Dr. Church accom- 
panying this letter, but to the letters of Captain 
Llewellen, Captain Day, and Lieutenant Mcllhenny. 
I could readily produce a hundred letters on the 
lines of the last three. In actual medical supplies, 
we had plenty of quinine and cathartics. We were 
apt to be short on other medicines, and we had noth- 
VoL. XI.— M 



290 The Rough Riders 

ing whatever in the way of proper nourishing food 
for our sick and wounded men during most of the 
time, except what we were able to get from the 
Red Cross or purchase with our own money. We had 
no hospital tent at all until I was able to get a couple 
of tarpaulins. During much of the time my own 
fly was used for the purpose. We had no cots until 
by individual effort we obtained a few, only three 
or four days before we left Cuba. During most 
of the time the sick men lay on the muddy ground 
in blankets, if they had any; if not, they lay with- 
out them until some of the well men cut their own 
blankets in half. Our regimental surgeon very 
soon left us, and Dr. Church, who was repeatedly 
taken down with fever, was left alone — save as he 
was helped by men detailed from among the troop- 
ers. Both he and the men thus detailed, together 
with the regular hospital attendants, did work of 
incalculable service. We had no ambulance with 
the regiment. On the battlefield our wounded were 
generally sent to the rear in mule-wagons, or on 
litters which were improvised. At other times we 
would hire the little springless Cuban carts. But 
of course the wounded suffered greatly in such con- 
veyances, and moreover, often we could not get a 
wheeled vehicle of any kind to transport even the 
most serious cases. On the day of the big fight, 
July I St, as far as we could find out, there were but 
two ambulances with the army in condition to work 
— neither of which did we ever see. Later there 



Appendix B 291 

were, as we were informed, thirteen all told; and 
occasionally after the surrender, by vigorous rep- 
resentations and requests, we would get one as- 
signed to take some peculiarly bad cases to the hos- 
pital. Ordinarily, however, we had to do with one 
of the makeshifts enumerated above. On several 
occasions I visited the big hospitals in the rear. 
Their condition w^as frightful beyond description 
from lack of supplies, lack of medicine, lack of doc- 
tors, nurses, and attendants, and especially from 
lack of transportation. The wounded and sick who 
were sent back suffered so much that, whenever 
possible, they returned to the front. Finally my 
brigade commander, General Wood, ordered, with 
my hearty acquiescence, that only in the direst need 
should any men be sent to the rear — no matter what 
our hospital accommodations at the front might be. 
The men themselves preferred to suffer almost any- 
thing lying alone in their little shelter-tents, rather 
than go back to the hospitals in the rear. I invite 
attention to the accompanying letter of Captain 
Llewellen in relation to the dreadful condition of 
the wounded on some of the transports taking them 
North. 

The greatest trouble we had was with the lack 
of transportation. Under the order issued by di- 
rection of General Miles through the Adjutant- 
General on or about May 8th, a regiment serving 
as infantry in the field was entitled to twenty-five 
wagons. We often had one, often none, sometimes 



292 The Rough Riders 

two, and never as many as three. We had a regi- 
mental pack-train, but it was left behind at Tampa. 
During most of the time our means of transporta- 
tion were chiefly the improvised pack-trains spoken 
of above ; but as the mules got well they were taken 
away from us, and so were the captured Spanish 
cavalry horses. Whenever we shifted camp, we had 
to leave most of our things behind, so that the night 
before each fight was marked by our sleeping with- 
out tentage and with very little food, so far as offi- 
cers were concerned, as everything had to be sacri- 
ficed to getting up what ammunition and medical 
supplies we had. Colonel Wood seized some mules, 
and in this manner got up the medical supplies be- 
fore the fight of June 24th, when for three days 
the officers had nothing but what they wore. There 
was a repetition of this, only in worse form, before 
and after the fight of July ist. Of course much 
of this was simply a natural incident of war, but a 
great deal could readily have been avoided if we had 
had enough transportation ; and I was sorry not to 
let my men he as comfortable as possible and rest 
as much as possible just before going into a fight 
when, as on July ist and 2d, they might have to be 
forty-eight hours with the minimum quantity of food 
and sleep. 

The fever began to make heavy ravages among 
our men just before the surrender, and from that 
time on it became a most serious matter to shift 
camp, with sick and ailing soldiers, hardly able to 



Appendix B 293 

walk — not to speak of carrying heavy burdens — 
when we had no transportation. Not more than 
half of the men could carry their rolls, and yet 
these, with the officers' baggage and provisions, the 
entire hospital and its appurtenances, etc., had to be 
transported somehow. It was usually about three 
days after we reached a new camp before the neces- 
saries which had been left behind could be brought 
up, and during these three days we had to get along 
as best we could. The entire lack of transportation 
at first resulted in leaving most of the troop mess- 
kits on the beach, and we were never able to get 
them. The men cooked in the few utensils they 
could themselves carry. This rendered it impossi- 
ble to boil the drinking water. Closely allied to the 
lack of transportation was the lack of means to 
land supplies from the transports. 

In my opinion, the deficiency in transportation 
was the worst evil with which we had to contend, 
serious though some of the others were. I have 
never served before, so have no means of comparing 
this with previous campaigns. I was often told 
by officers who had seen service against the Indians 
that, relatively to the size of the army, and the char- 
acter of the country, we had only a small fraction 
of the transportation always used in the Indian cam- 
paigns. As far as my regiment was concerned, we 
certainly did not have one-third of the amount ab- 
solutely necessary, if it was to be kept in fair con- 
dition, and we had to partially make good the de- 



294 The Rough Riders 

ficiency by the most energetic resort to all kinds 
of makeshifts and expedients. 

Yours respectfully, 
(Signed) Theodore Roosevelt, 

Colonel First United States Cavalry. 

Forwarded through military channels. 
(5 enclosures.) 

First Endorsement. 

Headquarters Fifth Army Corps. 
Camp Wikoff, September 18, i8p8. 
Respectfully forwarded to the Adjutant-General 
of the Army. 

(Signed) William R. Sh after, 

Major-General Commanding. 



Appendix C ^95 



APPENDIX C 

[The following is the report of the Associated 
Press correspondent of the "round-robin" incident. 
It is literally true in every detail. I was present 
when he was handed both letters; he was present 
while they were being written.] 

Santiago de Cuba, August 3d (delayed in trans- 
mission). — Summoned by Major-General Shafter, 
a meeting was held here this morning at head- 
quarters, and in the presence of every commanding 
and medical officer of the Fifth Army Corps, Gen- 
eral Shafter read a cable message from Secretary 
Alger, ordering him, on the recommendation of 
Surgeon-General Sternberg, to move the army into 
the interior, to San Luis, where it is healthier. 

As a result of the conference General Shafter will 
insist upon the immediate withdrawal of the army 
North. 

As an explanation of the situation the following 
letter from Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, command- 
ing the First Cavalry, to General Shafter, was 
handed by the latter to the correspondent of the 
Associated Press for publication : 

Major-General Shafter, 

Sir: In a meeting of the general and medical 
officers called by you at the Palace this morning 
we were all, as you know, unanimous in our views 



296 The Rough Riders 

of what should be done with the army. To keep 
us here, in the opinion of every officer commanding 
a division or a brigade, will simply involve the de- 
struction of thousands. There is no possible rea- 
son for not shipping practically the entire command 
North at once. 

Yellow-fever cases are very few in the cavalry 
division, where I command one of the two brigades, 
and not one true case of yellow fever has occurred 
in this division, except among the men sent to the 
hospital at Siboney, where they have, I believe, 
contracted it. 

But in this division there have been 1,500 cases 
of malarial fever. Hardly a man has yet died from 
it, but the whole command is so weakened and shat- 
tered as to be ripe for dying like rotten sheep, when 
a real yellow-fever epidemic instead of a fake epi- 
demic, like the present one, strikes us, as it is bound 
to do if we stay here at the height of the sickness 
season, August and the beginning of September. 
Quarantine against malarial fever is much like 
quarantining against the toothache. 

All of us are certain that as soon as the authori- 
ties at Washington fully appreciate the condition 
of the army, we shall be sent home. If we are 
kept here it will in all human possibility mean an 
appalling disaster, for the surgeons here estimate 
that over half the army, if kept here during the 
sickly season, will die. 

This is not only terrible from the standpoint of 
the individual lives lost, but it means ruin from the 
standpoint of military efficiency of the flower of the 



Appendix C ^97 

American army, for the great bulk of the regulars 
are here with you. The sick list, large though it 
is, exceeding four thousand, affords but a faint in- 
dex of the debilitation of the army. Not twenty 
per cent are fit for active work. 

Six weeks on the North Maine coast, for instance, 
or elsewhere where the yellow-fever germs can not 
possibly propagate, would make us all as fit as 
fighting-cocks, as able as we are eager to take a 
leading part in the great campaign against Havana 
in the fall, even if we are not allowed to try Porto 
Rico. 

We can be moved North, if moved at once, with 
absolute safety to the country, although, of course, 
it would have been infinitely better if we had been 
moved North or to Porto Rico two weeks ago. 
If there were any object in keeping us here, we 
would face yellow fever with as much indifference 
as we faced bullets. But there is no object. 

The four immune regiments ordered here are 
sufficient to garrison the city and surrounding 
towns, and there is absolutely nothing for us to 
do here, and there has not been since the city sur- 
rendered. It is impossible to move into the interior. 
Every shifting of camp doubles the sick-rate in 
our present weakened condition, and, anyhow, the 
interior is rather worse than the coast, as I have 
found by actual reconnoissance. Our present 
camps are as healthy as any camps at this end of 
the island can be. 

I write only because I can not see our men, who 
have fought so bravely and who have endured ex- 



298 The Rough Riders 

treme hardship and danger so uncomplainingly, go 
to destruction without striving so far as lies in me 
to avert a doom as fearful as it is unnecessary and 
undeserved. Yours respectfully, 

Theodore Roosevelt^ 

Colonel Commanding Second Cavalry Brigade. 

After Colonel Roosevelt had taken the initiative, 
all the American general officers united in a "round 
robin" address to General Shafter. It reads: 

We, the undersigned officers commanding the 
various brigades, divisions, etc., of the Army of 
Occupation in Cuba, are of the unanimous opinion 
that this army should be at once taken out of the 
island of Cuba and sent to some point on the north- 
ern sea-coast of the United States; that can be 
done without danger to the people of the United 
States; that yellow fever in the army at present is 
not epidemic; that there are only a few sporadic 
cases; but that the army is disabled by malarial 
fever to the extent that its efficiency is destroyed, 
and that it is in a condition to be practically entirely 
destroyed by an epidemic of yellow fever, which is 
sure to come in the near future. 

We know from the reports of competent officers 
and from personal observations that the army is 
unable to move into the interior, and that there are 
no facilities for such a move if attempted, and that 
it could not be attempted until too late. Moreover, 
the best medical authorities of the island say that 
with our present equipment we could not live in 
the interior during the rainy season without losses 



Appendix C 299 

from malarial fever which is almost as deadly as 
yellow fever. 

This army must be moved at once, or perish. 
As the army can be safely moved now, the persons 
responsible for preventing such a move will be re- 
sponsible for the unnecessary loss of many thou- 
sands of lives. 

Our opinions are the result of careful personal 
observation, and they are also based on the unani- 
mous opinion of our medical officers with the army, 
who understand the situation absolutely. 

J. Ford Kent^ 
Major-General Volunteers Commanding First Di- 
vision, Fifth Corps. 

J. C. Bates^ 
Major-General Volunteers Commanding Provisional 
Division. 

Adna R. Chaffee, 
Major-General Commanding Third Brigade, Second 
Division. 

Samuel S. Sumner, 
Brigadier - General Volunteers Commanding First 
Brigade, Cavalry. 

Will Ludlow, 
Brigadier - General Volunteers Commanding First 
Brigade, Second Division. 

Adelbert Ames, 
Brigadier-General Volunteers Commanding Third 
Brigade, First Division. 

Leonard Wood, 
Brigadier-General Volunteers Commanding the City 
of Santiago. 

Theodore Roosevelt, 
Colonel Commanding Second Cavalry Brigade. 



300 The Rough Riders 

Major M. W. Wood, the chief surgeon of the 
First Division, said: "The army must be moved 
North," adding, with emphasis, "or it will be un- 
able to move itself." 

General Ames has sent the following cable mes- 
sage to Washington : 

Charles H. Allen, Assistant Secretary of the 

Navy: 

This army is incapable, because of sickness, of 
marching anywhere except to the transports. If 
it is ever to return to the United States it must do 
so a once. 



Appendix D 3^^ 



APPENDIX D 

CORRECTIONS 

It has been suggested to me that when Bucky 
O'Neill spoke of the vultures tearing our dead, he 
was thinking of no modern poet, but of the words 
of the prophet Ezekiel : "Speak unto every feathered 
fowl ... ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty and 
drink the blood of the princes of the earth." 

At San Juan the Sixth Cavalry was under Major 
Lebo, a tried and gallant officer. I learn from a 
letter of Lieutenant McNamee that it was he, and 
not Lieutenant Hartwick, by whose orders the 
troopers of the Ninth cast down the fence to en- 
able me to ride my horse into the lane. But one 
of the two lieutenants of B Troop was overcome by 
the heat that day; Lieutenant Rynning was with 
his troop until dark. 

One night during the siege, when we were dig- 
ging trenches, a curious stampede occurred (not in 
my own regiment) which it may be necessary some 
time to relate. 

Lieutenants W. E. Shipp and W. H. Smith were 
killed, not far from each other, while gallantly lead- 
ing their troops on the slope of Kettle Hill. Each 
left a widow and young children. 



302 The Rough Riders 

Captain (now Colonel) A. L. Mills, the Brigade 
Adjutant-General, has written me some comments 
on my account of the fight on July ist. It was he 
himself who ftrst brought me word to advance. I 
then met Colonel Dorst — who bore the same mes- 
sage — as I was getting the regiment forward. 
Captain Mills was one of the officers I had sent 
back to get orders that would^^rmit me to ad- 
vance; he met General Sumner, who gave hinithe" 
orders, and he then returned to me. In a letter 
to me Colonel Mills says in part : 

I reached the head of the regiment as you came 
out of the lane and gave you the orders to enter 
the action. These were that you were to move, 
with your right resting along the wire fence of the 
lane, to the support of the regular cavalry then at- 
tacking the hill we were facing. "The red-roofed 
house yonder is your objective," I said to you. You 
moved out at once and quickly forged to the front 
of your regiment, I rode in rear, keeping the sol- 
diers and troopsi closed and in line as well as the 
circumstances and conditions permitted. We had 
covered, I judge, from one-half to two-thirds the 
distance to Kettle Hill when Lieutenant-Colonel 
Garlington, from our left flank, called to me that 
troops were needed in the meadow across the lane. 
I put one troop (not three, as stated in your ac- 
count*) across the lane and went with it. Ad- 
vancing with the troop, I began immediately to 

* The other two must have followed on their own initiative. 



Appendix D 3^3 

pick np troopers of the Ninth Cavalry who had 
drifted from their commands, and soon had so 
many they demanded nearly all my attention. With 
a line thus made up, the colored troopers on the 
left and yours on the right, the portion of Kettle 
Hill on the right of the red-roofed house was first 
carried, I very shortly thereafter had a strong 
firing-line established on the crest nearest the en- 
emy, from the corner of the fence around the house 
to the low ground on the right of the hill, which 
fired into the strong line of conical straw hats, 
whose brims showed just above the edge of the 
Spanish trench directly west of that part of the 
hill,* These hats made a fine target ! I had placed 
a young officer of your regiment in charge of the 
portion of the line on top of the hill, and was about 
to go to the left to keep the connection of the bri- 
gade — Captain McBlain, Ninth Cavalry, just then 
came up on the hill from the left and rear — when 
the shot struck that put me out of the fight. 

There were many wholly erroneous accounts of 
the Guasimas fight published at the time, for the 
most part written by newspaper-men who were in 
the rear and utterly ignorant of what really oc- 
curred. Most of these accounts possess a value so 
purely ephemeral as to need no notice. Mr, Stephen 
Bonsai, however, in his book, "The Fight for San- 

* These were the Spaniards in the trenches we carried 
when we charged from Kettle Hill, after the infantry had 
taken the San Juan block-house. 



304 The Rough Riders 

tiago," has cast one of them in a more permanent 
form; and I shall discuss one or two of his state- 
ments. 

Mr. Bonsai was not present at the fight, and, in- 
deed, so far as I know, he never at any time was 
with the cavalry in action. He puts in his book a 
map of the supposed skirmish ground; but it bears 
to the actual scene of the fight only the well-known 
likeness borne by Monmouth to Macedon. There 
was a brook on the battleground, and there is a 
brook in Mr. Bonsai's map. The real brook, flow- 
ing down from the mountains, crossed the valley 
road and ran down between it and the hill-trail, 
going nowhere near the latter. The Bonsai brook 
flows at right angles to the course of the real brook 
and crosses both trails — that is, it runs up hill. It 
is difficult to believe that the Bonsai map could 
have been made by any man who had gone over the 
hill-trail followed by the Rough Riders and who 
knew where the fighting had taken place. The po- 
sition of the Spanish line on the Bonsai map is 
inverted compared to what it really was. 

On page 90 Mr. Bonsai says that in making the 
"precipitate advance" there was a rivalry between 
the regulars and Rough Riders, which resulted in 
each hurrying recklessly forward to strike the 
Spaniards first. On the contrary, the official reports 
show that General Young's column waited for some 
time after it got to the Spanish position, so as to 
allow the Rough Riders (who had the more difficult 



Appendix D 3^5 

trail) to come up. Colonel Wood kept his column 
walking at a smart pace, merely so that the regulars 
might not be left unsupported when the fight be- 
gan; and as a matter of fact, it began almost 
simultaneously on both wings. 

On page 91 Mr. Bonsai speaks of "The foolhardy 
formation of a solid column along a narrow trail, 
which brought them (the Rough Riders) . . . 
within point-blank range of the Spanish rifles and 
within the unobstructed sweep of their machine- 
guns." He also speaks as if the advance should 
have been made with the regiment deployed through 
the jungle. Of course, the only possible way by 
which the Rough Riders could have been brought 
into action in time to support the regulars was by 
advancing in column along the trail at a good smart 
gait. As soon as our advance-gviard came into con- 
tact with the enemy's outpost we deployed. No 
firing began for at least five minutes after Captain 
Capron sent back word that he had come upon the 
Spanish outpost. At the particular point where this 
occurred there was a dip in the road, which prob- 
ably rendered it, in Capron's opinion, better to keep 
part of his men in it. In any event. Captain Cap- 
ron, who was as skilful as he was gallant, had ample 
time between discovering the Spanish outpost and 
the outbreak of the firing to arrange his troop in 
the formation he deemed best. His troop was not 
in solid formation; his men were about ten yards 
apart. Of course, to have walked forward deployed 



3o6 The Rough Riders 

through the jungle, prior to reaching the ground 
where we were to fight, would have been a course 
of procedure so foolish as to warrant the summary 
court-martial of any man directing it. We could 
not have made half a mile an hour in such a forma- 
tion, and would have been at least four hours too 
late for the fighting. 

On page 92 Mr. Bonsai says that Captain Cap- 
ron's troop was ambushed, and that it received the 
enemy's fire a quarter of an hour before it was ex- 
pected. This is simply not so. Before the column 
stopped we had passed a dead Cuban, killed in the 
preceding day's skirmish, and General Wood had 
notified me on information he had received from 
Capron that we might come into contact with the 
Spaniards at any moment, and, as I have already 
said, Captain Capron discovered the Spanish out- 
post, and we halted and partially deployed the col- 
umn before the firing began. We were at the time 
exactly where we had expected to come across the 
Spaniards. Mr. Bonsai, after speaking of L Troop, 
adds : "The remaining troops of the regiment had 
traveled more leisurely, and more than half an hour 
elapsed before they came up to Capron's support." 
As a matter of fact, all the troops traveled at ex- 
actly the same rate of speed, although there were 
stragglers from each, and when Capron halted and 
sent back word that he had come upon the Spanish 
outpost, the entire regiment closed up, halted, and 
most of the men sat down. We then, some minutes 



Appendix D 3^7 

after the first word had been received, and before 
any firing had begun, received instructions to de- 
ploy. I had my right wing partially deployed be- 
fore the first shots between the outposts took place. 
Within less than three minutes I had G Troop, with 
Llewellen, Greenway, and Leahy, and one platoon 
of K Troop under Kane, on the firing-line, and it 
was not until after we reached the firing-line that 
the heavy volley-firing from the Spaniards began. 
On page 94 Mr. Bonsai says : "A vexatious delay 
occurred before the two independent columns could 
communicate and advance with concerted action. 
... When the two columns were brought into 
communication it was immediately decided to make 
a general attack upon the Spanish position. . . . 
With this purpose in view, the following disposi- 
tion of the troops was made before the advance of 
the brigade all along the line was ordered." There 
was no communication between the two columns 
prior to the general attack, nor was any order issued 
for the advance of the brigade all along the line. 
The attacks were made wholly independently, and the 
first communication between the columns was when 
the right wing of the Rough Riders in the course 
of their advance by their firing dislodged the Span- 
iards from the hill across the ravine to the right, 
and then saw the regulars come up that hill. 

Mr. Bonsai's account of what occurred among 
the regulars parallels his account of what occurred 
among the Rough Riders. He states that the 



3o8 The Rough Riders 

squadron of the Tenth Cavalry delivered the main 
attack upon the hill, which was the strongest point 
of the Spanish position ; and he says of the troopers 
of the Tenth Cavalry that "their better training 
enabled them to render more valuable service than 
the other troops engaged." In reality, the Tenth 
Cavalrymen were deployed in support of the First, 
though they mingled with them in the assault 
proper; and so far as there was any difference 
at all in the amount of work done, it was in fa- 
vor of the First. The statement that the Tenth 
Cavalry was better trained than the First, and 
rendered more valuable service, has not the slight- 
est basis whatsoever of any kind, sort, or de- 
scription, in fact. The Tenth Cavalry did well 
what it was required to do; as an organization, in 
this fight, it was rather less heavily engaged, and 
suffered less loss, actually and relatively, than 
either the First Cavalry or the Rough Riders. It 
took about the same part that was taken by the left 
wing of the Rough Riders, which wing was simi- 
larly rather less heavily engaged than the right and 
centre of the regiment. Of course, this is a reflec- 
tion neither on the Tenth Cavalry nor on the left 
wing of the Rough Riders. Each body simply did 
what it was ordered to do, and did it well. But 
to claim that the Tenth Cavalry did better than the 
First, or bore the most prominent part in the fight, 
is like making the same claim for the left wing of 
the Rough Riders. All the troops engaged did 



Appendix D 309 

well, and all alike are entitled to share in the honor 
of the day. 

Mr, Bonsai out-Spaniards the Spaniards them- 
selves as regards both their numbers and their loss. 
These points are discussed elsewhere. He develops 
for the Spanish side, to account for their retreat, 
a wholly new explanation — viz., that they retreated 
because they saw reinforcements arriving for the 
Americans. The Spaniards themselves make no 
such claim. Lieutenant Tejeiro asserts that they 
retreated because news had come of an (wholly 
mythical) American advance on Morro Castle. 
The Spanish official report simply says that the 
Americans were repulsed; which is about as ac- 
curate a statement as the other two. All three ex- 
planations, those by General Rubin, by Lieutenant 
Tejeiro, and by Mr. Bonsai alike, are precisely on 
a par with the first Spanish official report of the 
battle of Manila Bay, in which Admiral Dewey was 
described as having been repulsed and forced to 
retire. 

There are one or two minor mistakes made by 
Mr. Bonsai. He states that on the roster of the 
officers of the Rough Riders there were ten West 
Pointers. There were three, one of whom resigned. 
Only two were in the fighting. He also states 
that after Las Guasimas Brigadier-General Young 
was made a Major-General and Colonel Wood a 
Brigadier-General, while the commanding officers 
of the First and Tenth Cavalry were ignored in this 



3IO The Rough Riders 

"shower of promotions." In the first place, the 
commanding officers of the First and Tenth Cav- 
alry were not in the fight — only one squadron of 
each having been present. In the next place, there 
was no "shower of promotions" at all. Nobody 
was promoted except General Young, save to fill 
the vacancies caused by death or by the promotion 
of General Young. Wood was not promoted be- 
cause of this fight. General Young most deservedly 
was promoted. Soon after the fight he fell sick. 
The command of the brigade then fell upon Wood, 
simply because he had higher rank than the other 
two regimental commanders of the brigade; and I 
then took command of the regiment exactly as 
Lieutenant-Colonels Viele and Baldwin had already 
taken command of the First and Tenth Cavalry 
when their superior officers were put in charge of 
brigades. After the San Juan fighting, in which 
Wood commanded a brigade, he was made a Brig- 
adier-General and I was then promoted to the nom- 
inal command of the regiment, which I was already 
commanding in reality. 

Mr. Bonsai's claim of superior efficiency for the 
colored regular regiments as compared with the 
white regular regiments does not merit discussion. 
He asserts that General Wheeler brought on the 
Guasimas fight in defiance of orders. Lieutenant 
Miley, in his book, "In Cuba with Shafter," on page 
83, shows that General Wheeler made his fight be- 
fore receiving the order which it is claimed he dis- 



Appendix D 311 

obeyed. General Wheeler was in command ashore ; 
he was told to get in touch with the enemy, and, be- 
ing a man with the "fighting edge," this meant that 
he was certain to fight. No general who was worth 
his salt would have failed to fight under such condi- 
tions ; the only question would be as to how the fight 
was to be made. War means fighting; and the sol- 
dier's cardinal sin is timidity. 

General Wheeler remained throughout steadfast 
against any retreat from before Santiago. But the 
merit of keeping the army before Santiago, without 
withdrawal, until the city fell, belongs to the au- 
thorities at Washington, who at this all-Important 
stage of the operations showed to marked advantage 
in overruling the proposals made by the highest 
generals In the field looking toward partial retreat 
or toward the abandonment of the effort to take the 
city. 

The following note, written by Sergeant E. G. 
Norton, of B Troop, refers to the death of his broth- 
er, Oliver B. Norton, one of the most gallant and 
soldierly men in the regiment : 

On July I St I, together with Sergeant Campbell 
and Troopers Bardshar and Dudley Dean and my 
brother who was killed and some others, was at 
the front of the column right behind you. We 
moved forward, following you as you rode, to 
where we came upon the troopers of the Ninth 
Cavalry and a part of the First lying down. I 
heard the conversation between you and one or two 



312 The Rough Riders 

of the officers of the Ninth Cavahy. You ordered 
a charge, and the regular officers answered that they 
had no orders to move ahead ; whereupon you said : 
"Then let us through," and marched forward 
through the lines, our regiment following. The 
men of the Ninth and First Cavalry then jumped 
up and came forward with us. Then you waved 
your hat and gave the command to charge and we 
went up the hill. On the top of Kettle Hill my 
brother, Oliver B. Norton, was shot through the 
head and in the right wrist. It was just as you 
started to lead the charge on the San Juan hills 
ahead of us; we saw that the regiment did not 
know you had gone and were not following, and 
my brother said, "For God's sake follow the Col- 
onel," and as he rose the bullet went through his 
head. 

In reference to Air. Bonsai's account of the Guasi- 
mas fight, Mr. Richard Harding Davis writes me as 
follows : 

We had already halted several times to give the 
men a chance to rest, and when we halted for the 
last time I thought it was for this same purpose, 
and began taking photographs of the men of L 
Troop, who were so near that they asked me to 
be sure and save them a photograph. Wood had 
twice disappeared down the trail beyond them and 
returned. As he came back for the second time I 
remember that you walked up to him (we were 
all dismounted then), and saluted and said: "Colo- 
nel, Doctor La Motte reports that the pace is too 



Appendix D 313 

fast for the men, and that over fifty have fallen out 
from exhaustion." Wood replied sharply: "I have 
no time to bother with sick men now." You re- 
plied, more in answer, I suppose, to his tone than 
to his words : "I merely repeated what the surgeon 
reported to me." Wood then turned and said in 
explanation: "I have no time for them now; I 
mean that we are in sight of the enemy." 

This was the only information we received that 
the men of L Troop had been ambushed by the 
Spaniards, and, if they were, they were very calm 
about it, and I certainly was taking photographs 
of them at the time, and the rest of the regiment, 
instead of being half an hour's march away, was 
seated comfortably along the trail not twenty feet 
distant from the men of L Troop. You deployed 
G Troop under Captain Llewellen into the jungle 
at the right and sent K Troop after it, and Wood 
ordered Troops E and F into the field on our left. 
It must have been from ten to fifteen minutes after 
Capron and Wood had located the Spaniards be- 
fore either side fired a shot. When the firing did 
come I went over to you and joined G Troop and 
a detachment of K Troop under Woodbury Kane, 
and we located more of the enemy on a ridge. 

If it is to be ambushed when you find the enemy 
exactly where you went to find him, and your 
scouts see him soon enough to give you sufficient 
time to spread five troops in skirmish order to at- 
tack him, and you then drive him back out of 
three positions for a mile and a half, then most 
certainly, as Bonsai says. "L Troop of the Rough 

Vol. XL— N 



314 The Rough Riders 

Riders was ambushed by the Spaniards on the morn- 
ing of June 24th." 

General Wood also writes me at length about 
Mr. Bonsai's book, stating that his account of the 
Guasimas fight is without foundation in fact. He 
says : "We had five troops completely deployed be- 
fore the first shot was fired. Captain Capron was 
not wounded until the fight had been going on fully 
thirty-five minutes. The statement that Captain 
Capron's troop was ambushed is absolutely untrue. 
We had been informed, as you know, by Castillo's 
people that we should find the dead guerilla a few 
hundred yards on the Siboney side of the Spanish 
lines." 

He then alludes to the waving of the guidon by 
K Troop as "the only means of communication with 
the regulars." He mentions that his orders did 
not come from General Wheeler, and that he had no 
instructions from General Wheeler directly or in- 
directly at any time previous to the fight. 

General Wood does not think that I give quite 
enough credit to the Rough Riders as compared to 
the regulars in this Guasimas fight, and believes 
that I greatly underestimate the Spanish force and 
loss, and that Lieutenant Tejeiro is not to be trusted 
at all on these points. He states that we began the 
fight ten minutes before the regulars, and that the 
main attack was made and decided by us. This was 
the view that I and all the rest of us in the regiment 



Appendix D 315 

took at the time; but as I had found since that the 
members of the First and Tenth Regular Regiments 
held with equal sincerity the view that the main part 
was taken by their own commands, I have come to 
the conclusion that the way I have described the 
action is substantially correct. Owing to the fact 
that the Tenth Cavalry, which was originally in sup- 
port, moved forward until it got mixed with the 
First, it is very difficult to get the exact relative 
position of the different troops of the First and 
Tenth in making the advance. Beck and Galbraith 
were on the left; apparently Wainwright was 
furthest over on the right. General Wood states 
that Leonardo Ros, the Civil Governor of Santiago 
at the time of the surrender, told him that the 
Spanish force at Guasimas consisted of not less than 
2,600 men, and that there were nearly 300 of them 
killed and wounded. I do not myself see how it 
was possible for us, as we were the attacking party 
and were advancing against superior numbers well 
sheltered, to inflict five times as much damage as we 
received; but as we buried eleven dead Spaniards, 
and as they carried off some of their dead, I be- 
lieve the loss to have been very much heavier than 
Lieutenant Tejeiro reports. 

General Wood believes that in following Lieuten- 
ant Tejeiro I have greatly underestimated the num- 
ber of Spanish troops who were defending Santiago 
on July 1st, and here I think he completely makes 
out his case, he taking the view that Lieutenant 



3i6 The Rough Riders 

Tejeiro's statements were made for the purpose of 
saving Spanish honor. On this point his letter runs 
as follows : 

A word in regard to the number of troops in 
Santiago. I have had, during my long association 
here, a good many opportunities to get information 
which you have not received and probably never will 
receive; that is, information from parties who were 
actually in the fight, who are now residents of 
the city, also Information which came to me as 
commanding officer of the city directly after the 
surrender. 

To sum up briefly as follows : The Spanish sur- 
rendered in Santiago 12,000 men. We shipped 
from Santiago something over 14,000 men. The 
2,000 additional were troops that came in from 
San Luis, Songo, and small up-country posts. The 
12,000 in the city, minus the force of General Is- 
cario, 3,300 infantry and 680 cavalry, or in round 
numbers 4,000 men (who entered the city just 
after the battles of San Juan and El Caney) , leaves 
8,000 regulars, plus the dead, plus Cervera's ma- 
rines and blue- jackets, which he himself admits 
landing, in the neighborhood of 1,200 (and reports 
here are that he landed 1,380), and plus the Span- 
ish Volunteer Battalion, which was between 800 
and 900 men (this statement I have from the lieu- 
tenant-colonel of this very battalion), gives us in 
round numbers, present for duty on the morning 
of July 1st, not less than 10,500 men. These men 
were distributed 890 at Caney, two companies of 



Appendix D 317 

artillery at Morro, one at Socapa, and half a com- 
pany at Puenta Gorda; in all, not over 500 or 600 
men, but for the sake of argument we can say a 
thousand. In round numbers then we had imme- 
diately about the city 8,500 troops. These were 
scattered from the cemetery around to Aguadores. 
In front of us, actually in the trenches, there could 
not by any possible method of figuring have been 
less than 6,000 men. You can twist it any way 
you want to; the figures I have given you are ab- 
solutely correct, at least they are absolutely on the 
side of safety. 

It is difficult for me to withstand the temptation 
to tell what has befallen some of my men since the 
regiment disbanded; how McGinty, after spending 
some weeks in Roosevelt Hospital in New York 
with an attack of fever, determined to call upon his 
captain, Woodbury Kane, when he got out, and pro- 
curing a horse rode until he found Kane's house, 
when he hitched the horse to a lamp-post and strolled 
in ; how Cherokee Bill married a wife in Hoboken, 
and as that pleasant city ultimately proved an un- 
congenial field for his activities, how I had to send 
both himself and his wife out to the Territory ; how 
Happy Jack, haunted by visions of the social meth- 
ods obtaining in the best saloons of Arizona, ap- 
plied for the position of "bouncer out" at the Execu- 
tive Chamber when I was elected Governor, and how 
I got him a job at railroading instead, and finally 
had to ship him back to his own Territory also ; how 



3i8 The Rough Riders 

a valued friend from a cow ranch in the remote West 
accepted a pressing invitation to spend a few days 
at the home of another ex-trooper, a New Yorker 
of fastidious instincts, and arrived with an umbrella 
as his only baggage ; how poor Holderman and Pol- 
lock both died and were buried with military hon- 
ors, all of Pollock's tribesmen coming to the burial ; 
how Tom Isbell joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West 
Show, and how, on the other hand, George Rowland 
scornfully refused to remain in the East at all, writ- 
ing to a gallant young New Yorker who had been 
his bunkie: "Well, old boy, I am glad I didn't go 
home with you for them people to look at, because 
I aint a Buffalo or a rhinoceros or a giraffe, and I 
dont like to be Stared at, and you know we didnt do 
no hard fighting down there. I have been in closer 
places than that right here in Yunited States, that 
is Better men to fight than them dam Spaniards." 
In another letter Rowland tells of the fate of Tom 
Darnell, the rider, he who rode the sorrel horse of 
the Third Cavalry : "There aint much news to write 
of except poor old Tom Darnell got killed about a 
month ago. Tom and another fellow had a fight and 
he shot Tom through the heart and Tom was dead 
when he hit the floor. Tom was sure a good old 
boy, and I sure hated to hear of him going, and he 
had plenty of grit too. No man ever called on him 
for a fight that he didn't get it." 

My men were children of the dragon's blood, and 
if they had no outland foe to fight and no outlet for 



Appendix D 319 

their vigorous and daring energy, there was always 
the chance of their fighting one another : but the 
great majority, if given the chance to do hard or 
dangerous work, availed themselves of it with the 
utmost eagerness, and though fever sickened and 
weakened them so that many died from it during the 
few months following their return, yet, as a whole, 
they are now doing fairly well. A few have shot 
other men or been shot themselves; a few ran for 
office and got elected, like Llewellen and Luna in 
New Mexico, or defeated, like Brodie and Wilcox 
in Arizona ; some have been trying hard to get to the 
Philippines ; some have returned to college, or to the 
law, or the factory, or the counting-room ; most of 
them liave gone back to the mine, the ranch, and 
the hunting camp; and the great majority have 
taken up the threads of their lives where they 
dropped them when the Maine was blown up and the 
country called to arms. 



320 The Rough Riders 



APPENDIX E 

(Congressional Record, 55TH Congress, Third 
Session, Volume 32, Part II, Page 1250) 

NOMINATIONS BY THE PRESIDENT. 

To be Colonel by Brevet. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, First 
Volunteer Cavalry, for gallantry in battle, Las 
Guasimas, Cuba, June 24, 1898. 

To be Brigadier-General by Brevet. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, First 
Volunteer Cavalry, for gallantry in battle, San- 
tiago de Cuba, July i, 1898. (Nominated for 
brevet colonel, to rank from June 24, 1898.) 



Fort San Juan, Cuba, 
July 17, 1898. 
The Adjutant-General United States Army, 
Washington, D. C. 

(Through military channels.) 
Sir : I have the honor to invite attention to the 
following list of officers and enlisted men who 



Appendix E 321 

specially distinguished themselves in the action at 
Las Guasimas, Cuba, June 24, 1898. 

These officers and men have been recommended 
for favorable consideration by their immediate com- 
manding officers in their respective reports, and I 
would respectfully urge that favorable action be 
taken. 

OFFICERS. 

In First United States Volunteer Cavalry — 
Colonel Leonard Wood, Lieutenant-Colonel Theo- 
dore Roosevelt. 

Respectfully, 

Jos. Wheeler, 
Major-General United States Volunteers, 
Commanding. 



Headquarters Second Cavalry Brigade, 
Camp near Santiago de Cuba, Cuba, 
June 29, 1898. 
The Adjutant-General Cavalry Division. 

Sir : By direction of the major-general command- 
ing the Cavalry Division, I have the honor to sub- 
mit the following report of the engagement of a 
part of this brigade with the enemy at Guasimas, 



322 The Rough Riders 

Cuba, on the 24th instant, accompanied by detailed 
reports from the regimental and other commanders 
engaged, and a list of the killed and wounded : 

I can not speak too highly of the efficient manner 
in which Colonel Wood handled his regiment, and 
of his magnificent behavior on the field. The con- 
duct of Lieutenant-Colonel Roosevelt, as reported 
to me by my two aides, deserves my highest com- 
mendation. Both Colonel Wood and Lieutenant- 
Colonel Roosevelt disdained to take advantage of 
shelter or cover from the enemy's fire while any of 
their men remained exposed to it — an error of judg- 
ment, but happily on the heroic side. 

Very respectfully, 

S. B. M. Young, 
Brigadier-General United States Volunteers, 
Commanding. 



Headquarters First Division Second Army 
Corps, Camp Mackenzie, Ga., 

„ December 30, 1898. 

Adjutant-General, 

Washington, D. C. 
Sir : I have the honor to recommend Hon. Theo- 
dore Roosevelt, late Colonel First United States 



Appendix E 323 

Volunteer Cavalry, for a medal of honor, as a re- 
ward for conspicuous gallantry at the battle of San 
Juan, Cuba, on July i, 1898. 

Colonel Roosevelt by his example and fearless- 
ness inspired his men, and both at Kettle Hill and 
the ridge known as San Juan he led his command 
in person. I was an eye-witness of Colonel Roose- 
velt's action. 

As Colonel Roosevelt has left the service, a 
Brevet Commission is of no particular value in 
his case. 

Very respectfully, 

Samuel S. Sumner, 
Major-General United States Volunteers. 



West Point, N. Y., 
December 17, 1898. 
My Dear Colonel: I saw you lead the line up 
the first hill — you were certainly the first officer to 
reach the top — and through your efforts, and your 
personally jumping to the front, a line more or 
less thin, but strong enough to take it, was led by 
you to the San Juan or first hill. In this your life 
was placed in extreme jeopardy, as you may recall, 
and as it proved by the number of dead left in that 
vicinity. Captain Stevens, then of the Ninth Cav- 
alry, now of the Second Cavalry, was with you, and 



3^4 The Rough Riders 

I am sure he recalls your gallant conduct. After 
the line started on the advance from the first hill, I 
did not see you until our line was halted, under a 
most galling fire, at the extreme front, where you 
afterward intrenched. I spoke to you there and 
gave instructions from General Sumner that the 
position was to be held and that there would be no 
further advance till further orders. You were the 
senior officer there, took charge of the line, scolded 
me for having my horse so high up on the ridge ; at 
the same time you were exposing yourself most con- 
spicuously while adjusting the line, for the example 
was necessary, as was proved when several colored 
soldiers — about eight or ten, Twenty-fourth Infan- 
try men, I think — started at a run to the rear to 
assist a wounded colored soldier, and you drew your, 
revolver and put short and effective stop to such 
apparent stampede^ — it quieted them. That posi- 
tion was hot, and now I marvel at your escaping 

there 

Very sincerely yours, 

Robert L. Howze. 



West Point, N. Y., 
December 17, 1898. 
I hereby certify that on July i, 1898, Colonel 
(then Lieutenant-Colonel) Theodore Roosevelt, 



Appendix E 325 

First Volunteer Cavalry, distinguished himself 
through the action, and on two occasions during 
the battle, when I was an eye-witness, his conduct 
was most conspicuous and clearly distinguished 
above other men, as follows : 

1. At the base of the San Juan, or first hill, there 
was a strong wire fence, or entanglement, at which 
the line hesitated under a galling fire, and where 
the losses were severe. Colonel Roosevelt jumped 
through the fence and by his enthusiasm, his ex- 
ample, and courage succeeded in leading to the crest 
of the hill a line sufficiently strong to capture it. In 
this charge the Cavalry Brigade suffered its greatest 
loss, and the Colonel's life was placed in extreme 
jeopardy, owing to the conspicuous position he took 
in leading the line, and being the first to reach the 
crest of that hill, while under heavy fire of the 
enemy at close range. 

2. At the extreme advanced position occupied by 
our lines. Colonel Roosevelt found himself the sen- 
ior, and under instructions from General Sumner 
to hold that position. He displayed the greatest 
bravery and placed his life in extreme jeopardy by 
unavoidable exposure to severe fire while adjusting 
and strengthening the line, placing the men in posi- 
tions which afforded best protection, etc., etc. His 
conduct and example steadied the men, and on one 
occasion by severe but necessary measures pre- 



3^6 The Rough Riders 

vented a small detachment from stampeding to the 
rear. He displayed the most conspicuous gallantry, 
courage and coolness, in performing extraordinarily 
hazardous duty. 

Robert L. Howze, 
Captain A. A. G., U. S. V. 
(First Lieutenant Sixth United States Cavalry.) 
To THE Adjutant-General United States 
Army, Washington, D. C. 



Headquarters United States Military Acad- 
emy, West Point, N. Y., 

April 5, 1899. 
Lieutenant-Colonel W. H. Carter, 

Assistant Adjutant-General United States Army, 
Washington, D. C. 

Sir : In compliance with the request, contained in 
your letter of the 30th ultimo, of the Board convened 
to consider the awarding of brevets, medals of hon- 
or, etc., for the Santiago Campaign, that I state any 
facts, within my knowledge as Adjutant-General of 
the Brigade in which Colonel Theodore Roosevelt 
served, to aid the board in determining, in connec- 
tion with Colonel Roosevelt's application for a medal 
of honor, whether his conduct at Santiago was such 
as to distinguish him above others, I have the honor 
to submit the following; 



Appendix E 327 

My duties on July i, 1898, brought me in con- 
stant observation of and contact with Colonel Roose- 
velt from early morning until shortly before the 
climax of the assault of the Cavalry Division on the 
San Juan Hill — the so-called Kettle Hill. During 
this time, while under the enemy's artillery fire at 
El Poso, and while on the march from El Poso by 
the San Juan ford to the point from which his regi- 
ment moved to the assault — about two miles, the 
greater part under fire — Colonel Roosevelt was con- 
spicuous above any others I observed in his regi- 
ment in the zealous performance of duty, in total 
disregard of his personal danger, and in his eager- 
ness to meet the enemy. At El Poso, when the 
enemy opened on that place with artillery fire, a 
shrapnel bullet grazed and bruised one of Colonel 
Roosevelt's wrists. The incident did not lessen his 
hazardous exposure, but he continued so exposed 
until he had placed his command under cover. In 
moving to the assault of San Juan Hill, Colonel 
Roosevelt was most conspicuously brave, gallant, 
and indifferent to his own safety. He, in the open, 
led his regiment; no officer could have set a more 
striking example to his men or displayed greater 
intrepidity. Very respectfully, 

Your obedient servant, 

A. L. Mills, 
Colonel United States Army, Superintendent. 



328 The Rough Riders 

Headquarters 

Department of Santiago de Cuba, 
Santiago de Cuba, 
December 30, 1898. 

To the Adjutant-General, United States 
Army, Washington, D. C. 

Sir : I have the honor to make the following state- 
ment relative to the conduct of Colonel Theodore 
Roosevelt, late First United States Volunteer Cav- 
alry, during the assault upon San Juan Hill, July 
I, 1898. 

I have already recommended this officer for a 
medal of honor, which, I understand, has been de- 
nied him, upon the ground that my previous letter 
was too indefinite. I based my recommendation 
upon the fact that Colonel Roosevelt, accompanied 
only by four or five men, led a very desperate and 
extremely gallant charge on San Juan Hill, thereby 
setting a splendid example to the troops and en- 
couraging them to pass over the open country inter- 
vening between their position and the trenches of 
the enemy. In leading this charge, he started off 
first, as he supposed, with quite a following of men, 
but soon discovered that he was alone. He then re- 
turned and gathered up a few men and led them to 
the charge as above stated. The charge in itself was 
an extremely gallant one, and the example set a 



Appendix E 329 

most inspiring one to the troops in that part of the 
hne; and while it is perfectly true that everybody 
finally went up the hill in good style, yet there is no 
doubt that the magnificent example set by Colonel 
Roosevelt had a very encouraging effect and had 
great weight in bringing up the troops behind him. 
During the assault Colonel Roosevelt was the first 
to reach the trenches in his part of the line and 
killed one of the enemy with his own hand. 

I earnestly recommend that the medal be con- 
ferred upon Colonel Roosevelt, for I believe that he 
in every way deserves it, and that his services on 
the day in question were of great value and of a 
most distinguished character. 

Very respectfully, 

Leonard Wood, 
Major-Gencral United States Volunteers, 
Commanding Department of Santiago de Cuba. 



HuNTsviLLE, Ala., 
January 4, 1899. 

To THE Adjutant-General, United States 
Army, Washington, D. C. 
Sir : I have the honor to recommend that a "Con- 
gressional j\Iedal of Honor" be given to Theodore 
Roosevelt (late Colonel First Volunteer Cavalry), 



23*^ The Rough Riders 

for distinguished conduct and conspicuous bravery 
in command of his regiment in the charge on San 
Juan Hill, Cuba, July i, 1898. 

In compliance with G. O. 135, A. G. O. 1898, 
I inclose my certificate showing my personal knowl- 
edge of Colonel Roosevelt's conduct. 

Very respectfully, 

C. J. Stevens, 
Captain Second Cavalry. 

I hereby certify that on July i, 1898, at the battle 
of San Juan, Cuba, I witnessed Colonel (then Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel) Roosevelt, First Volunteer Cavalry, 
United States of America, mounted, leading his 
regiment in the charge on San Juan. By his gal- 
lantry and strong personality he contributed most 
materially to the success of the charge of the Cav- 
alry Division up San Juan Hill. 

Colonel Roosevelt was among the very first to 
reach the crest of the hill, and his dashing example, 
his absolute fearlessness, and gallant leading ren- 
dered his conduct conspicuous and clearly distin- 
guished above other men. 

C. J. Stevens, 
Captain Second Cavalry. 
(Late First Lieutenant Ninth Cavalry.) 



Appendix E 331 

Young's Island, S. C, 
December 28, 1898. 
To THE Adjutant-General, United States 
Army, Washington, D. C. 
Sir : Believing that information relating to su- 
perior conduct on the part of any of the higher offi- 
cers who participated in the Spanish- American War 
(and which information may not have been given) 
would be appreciated by the Department over which 
you preside, I have the honor to call your attention 
to the part borne by Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, 
of the First United States Volunteer Cavalry, in 
the battle of July ist last. I do this not only because 
I think you ought to know, but because his regiment 
as a whole were very proud of his splendid actions 
that day and believe they call for that most coveted 
distinction of the American officer, the Medal of 
Honor. Held in support, he brought his regiment, 
at exactly the right time, not only up to the line of 
regulars, but went through them and headed, on 
horseback, the charge on Kettle Hill; this being 
done on his own initiative, the regulars as well as 
his own men following. He then headed the charge 
on the next hill, both regulars and the First United 
States Volunteer Cavalry following. He was so 
near the intrenchments on the second hill that he 
shot and killed with a revolver one of the enemy 
before they broke completely. He then led the cav- 



22"^ The Rough Riders 

airy on the chain of hills overlooking Santiago, 
where he remained in charge of all the cavalry that 
was at the extreme front for the rest of that day 
and night. His unhesitating gallantry in taking the 
initiative against intrenchments lined by men armed 
with rapid-fire guns certainly won him the highest 
consideration and admiration of all who witnessed 
his conduct throughout that day. 

What I here write I can bear witness to from per- 
sonally having seen. 

Very respectfully, 

M. J. Jenkins, 
Major Late First United States Volunteer Cavalry. 



Prescott, a. T., 
December 25, 1898. 

I was Colonel Roosevelt's orderly at the battle of 
San Juan Hill, and from that time on until our return 
to Montauk Point. I was with him all through the 
fighting, and believe I was the only man who was 
always with him, though during part of the time 
Lieutenants Ferguson and Greenwald were also close 
to him. He led our regiment forward on horseback 
until he came to the men of the Ninth Cavalry, lying 
down. He led us through these and they got up 
and joined us. He gave the order to charge on 



Appendix E 332 

Kettle Hill, and led us on horseback up the hill, both 
Rough Riders and the Ninth Cavalry. He was the 
first on the hill, I being very nearly alongside of 
him. Some Spanish riflemen were coming out of the 
intrenchments and he killed one with his revolver. 
He took the men on to the crest of the hill and bade 
them begin firing on the blockhouse on the hill to 
our left, the one the infantry were attacking. When 
we took it, he gave the order to charge, and led the 
troops on Kettle Hill forward against the block- 
house on our front. He then had charge of all the 
cavalry on the hills overlooking Santiago, where we 
afterward dug our trenches. He had command that 
afternoon and night, and for the rest of the time 
commanded our regiment at this point. 
Yours very truly, 

H. P. Bardshar. 



Cambridge, Md., 
March 2y, 1902. 
Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United 
States, Washington, D. C. 
Dear Sir : At your request, I send you the fol- 
lowing extracts from my diary and from notes 
taken on the day of the assault on San Juan. I kept 
in my pocket a small pad on which incidents were 



334 The Rough Riders 

noted daily from the landing until the surrender. 
On the day of the fight notes were taken just before 
Grimes fired his first gun, just after the third reply 
from the enemy — when we were massed in the road 
about seventy paces from Grimes's guns, and when 
I was beginning to get scared and to think I would 
be killed — at the halt just before you advanced, and 
under the shelter of the hills in the evening. Each 
time that notes were taken the page was put in 
an envelope addressed to my wife. At the first 
chance they were mailed to her, and on my arri- 
val in the United States the story of the fight, 
taken from these notes, was entered in the diary I 
keep in a book. I make this lengthy explanation 
that you may see that everything put down was fresh 
in my memory. 

I quote from my diary : "The tension on the men 
was great. Suddenly a line of men appeared com- 
ing from our right. They were advancing through 
the long grass, deployed as skirmishers, and were 
under fire. At their head, or rather in front of 
them and leading them, rode Colonel Roosevelt. 
He was very conspicuous, mounted as he was. 
The men were the 'Rough Riders,' so-called. I 
heard some one calling to them not to fire into us, 
and seeing Colonel Carrol, reported to him, and 
was told to go out and meet them, and caution 
them as to our position, we being between them 



Appendix E 235 

and the enemy. I did so, speaking to Colonel 
Roosevelt. I also told him we were under orders 
not to advance, and asked him if he had received 
any orders. He replied that he was going to charge 
the Spanish trenches. I told this to Colonel Carrol 
and to Captain Dimmick, our squadron commander. 
A few moments after the word passed down that our 
left (Captain Taylor) was about to charge. Cap- 
tain McBlain called out, *We must go in with those 
troops; we must support Taylor.' I called this to 
Captain Dimmick and he gave the order to assault. 

"The cheer was taken up and taken up again on 
the left, and in the distance it rolled on and on. 
And so we started. Colonel Roosevelt, of the 
Rough Riders, started the whole movement on the 
left, which was the first advance of the assault." . . . 

The following is taken from my notes and was 
hastily jotted down on the field : "The Rough Riders 
came in line — Colonel Roosevelt said he would as- 
sault — Taylor joined them with his troop — McBlain 
called to Dimmick, 'Let us go, we must go to sup- 
port them,' Dimmick said all right — and so, with 
no orders, we went in." 

I find many of my notes are illegible from per- 
spiration. My authority for saying Taylor went 
in with you, "joined with his troop" was the word 
passed to me and repeated to Captain Dimmick that 
Taylor was about to charge with you. I could not 



;^26 The Rough Riders 

see his troop, I have not put it in my diary, but in 
another place I have noted that Colonel Carrol, who 
was acting as brigade commander, told me to ask 
you if you had any orders. 
I have the honor to be, 

Very respectfully. 

Your obedient servant, 

Henry Anson Barber, 
Captain Tzventy-Eighth Infantry 

(formerly of Ninth Cavalry), 



END OF VOLUME ELEVEN 






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